


Worth Their Weight in Gold

by Becky_Blue_Eyes



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cersei is That Bitch, Crack Treated Seriously, Elia Martell Lives, Elia and Cersei are businesswomen, Elia and Jaime are Happy, Everyone gangs up on Ned, F/M, Female Friendship, Fluff, Gen, Gossip, Jaime is a Good Dad, Poor Lyanna just wanted to go to a fun tourney, Rhaenys is technically two characters in this story that's why the tags are weird, Romance, Self-indulgent fluff, Seriously this is literally just me writing Elia and Jaime being happy with Cersei and the gang, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Tourney at Harrenhal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:07:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23033707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Becky_Blue_Eyes/pseuds/Becky_Blue_Eyes
Summary: In a world where Elia Martell is born late and Cersei and Jaime Lannister are born early; where Elia has dreams of saffron and Jaime is far more defiant of his father—their lives entwine with golden delight, and their children are raised in endless sunlight.A super fluffy, crakfic-taken-seriously Jaime/Elia AU because I need to write something cheerful for once and Elia and Jaime deserve at least one (1) happy ending. Jaime/Elia, Ashara/Ned, happy!Cersei/ Robert, future AU!Robb/ AU!Rhaenys. Nothing Bad Happens Here I Promise.
Relationships: Ashara Dayne/Ned Stark, Jaime Lannister/Elia Martell, Jon Snow/Sansa Stark, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Monford Velaryon/Original Female Character(s), Rhaenys Targaryen (Daughter of Elia)/Monford Velaryon, Robb Stark/Rhaenys Targaryen (Daughter of Elia), Robert Baratheon/Cersei Lannister, past Tywin Lannister/Joanna Lannister
Comments: 68
Kudos: 194





	1. Elia I

**Author's Note:**

> Note: in this story, Dorne is Moorish Spain; its culture is a fantasy mix of Spanish, Moroccan and Mexican cultures; and its geography is a mixture of the Iberian peninsula (mountains to the north, plains to the south, generally warm all year) and of Southern California/Northern Mexico (highland and lowland deserts with little water but extremely fertile soil). 
> 
> Both the Iberian Peninsula and California/Mexico are known for citrus fruits and world-class wineries, and for growing “exotic” crops such as rice, saffron, olives, bananas, tea and agave. Pulque (a drink made with fermented agave sap, if you distill agave sap you make tequila) has a sour taste so I wouldn’t be surprised if Dornish winemakers added a touch of pulque to their Dornish sours.
> 
> I grew up in SoCal with lemon and orange trees in my backyard, deserts and mountains and beaches and vineyards one hour which way from my house, and my alma mater university is known for experimenting with citrus trees. When I read that GRRM based Dorne off of Moorish Spain I couldn’t help myself by inserting bits of my childhood lmao

Ages of major and minor characters at start of the story (277, 5 years before the Tourney at Harrenhal):

Doran Martell, born 248, age 29

Oberyn Martell, born 257, age 20

Rhaegar Targaryen, born 259, age 18

Elia Martell, born 260, age 17

Ashara Dayne, born 261, age 16

Cersei and Jaime Lannister, born 262, age 15

Robert Baratheon, born 262, age 15

Eddard Stark, born 263, age 14

Lyanna Stark, born 266, age 11

Tyrion Lannister, born 273, age 4

Viserys Targaryen, born 276, age 1

Arianne Martell, born 276, age 1

* * *

Elia Nymeros Martell, born three years after her brother Oberyn and thirteen after Doran, is the beloved baby of her family. Mother had given up hope for a daughter to dote upon and contented herself with her two sons, so even when Elia is born a moon too early and wails incessantly with her too-tiny lungs, she is adored. She grows up at Sunspear and the Water Gardens, browning under the sun and eating as many blood oranges and stuffed grape leaves as she so desired. Mother lets Elia watch her rule at her hip; Doran teaches her cyvasse and High Valyrian and how to make little white lies; and Oberyn is her champion. They play in the pools, splashing each other with sun-warmed water and dunking Ashara Dayne when she has her back turned. Elia grows up loved and never considered lesser for her slender frame and delicate constitution.

No, she grows up at third in line to Sunspear, then fourth after Doran marries Mellario and births little Arianne. That separation from the title of Ruling Princess gives her room to breathe, to study desert agriculture and trade routes. She tells Mother and Doran they must rebuild ten thousand ships and send them to Essos and the Summer Isles. Dorne is poor in water but rich in hardy soil beneath the topmost layer of sand. Suppose they ally with the Westerlands (never the Reach, Elia sniffs at making a pact with those loathsome Reachers) to build more glasshouses, and when Dorne overflows with exotic fruits and spices from halfway around the world, they can cut into those luxury markets.

“They say that saffron is grown in the shadowlands, and that the shadowlands have hardly any water that isn’t poisoned.” Elia tilts her chin up and points at the pile of texts and her own calculations she’s carefully dumped onto Mother’s desk. “Dorne at least has good, clean water when we can find it! And that’s only the tip of the spear, I’ve been researching what we could feasibly grow in a Dornish climate with enough water. If we can grow agave in the midst of the red sands then this will be easy. We could sell saffron and olive oil and bananas and Yi Tish tea to the other kingdoms and to Essos and have an edge over those Jade Sea merchants!”

Mother smiles, slow and smooth like a viper sizing up a delectable mouse. “And what would you do with that money, my darling?”

“I would ask you to commission canals from the Torrentine and the Greenblood. We can have the river valley lords and smallfolk help, give them an occupation while the canals are built. King Aerys once promised to make Dorne bloom like the Reach, but I think we can do it ourselves.” Elia has plans. She’s read the histories of the Rhoyne, how every river boatman was also a farmer and a spicer. Dorne is beautiful and Elia’s home, but surely they can do better! Be more than merely the kingdom that defied dragons—as if Nymeria’s children could do no less and no more!

Mother nods. “An interesting plan, Elia. But who would we ally ourselves with to fund these glasshouses to begin with?”

Elia knows exactly who. “The Lannisters, they’re the richest house in Westeros. Cersei and Jaime Lannister are only two years younger than me, so we can befriend them. Maybe Lady Cersei can marry Oberyn, or…” Elia blushes. She is seventeen, a woman grown. But while she’s had a few discreet kisses with Arron Qorgyle and Larra Blackmont, it never amounted to anything like marriage. Childish as it is, marriage is still something that fills her stomach with butterflies. “Or I could marry Ser Jaime. Whichever marriage is best for Dorne.”

Mother pats her hand. “I’ve been meaning to take you on a progress through Westeros, visit some lords that may vie for your hand. Lannisport is not so far from here by ship—let’s visit Casterly Rock.” Elia beams, but then Mother beams too and that’s always dangerous. “And you can explain to Lord Tywin about your venture.”

Ah. Elia would rather jump into a pit of snakes than deal with the man who brought the rains over Castamere! Elia nods and takes a bracing breath. Tywin is a terrifying man, yes, but just a man. And Elia is a Princess of Dorne; she will let him see the steel of her spine.

Mother, Oberyn, and Ashara come with Elia to Casterly Rock. Elia asked for Ashara, for a friendly face in a sea of Westerlanders and someone to bounce ideas off. Ashara accepts, her purple eyes bright with the idea of adventure. And is this not a great adventure? Elia and Ashara giggle to see Oberyn swagger and jest with the sailors on their ship, trading barbs with men twice his age. Ashara and Mother help Elia choose her wardrobe, not wanting to wear Andal fashion—damn the long stays on those overly stiffened bodices!—but not wanting to offend Tywin’s delicate sensibilities. She hopes Cersei will like her, it would be nice to have another girl friend. As for Jaime…well, he’s only fifteen, and Elia is no stunning beauty like Ashara or Larra. She can be friends with him anyway, especially if he wants to try his hand at sparring with spears.

Mother’s gaze softens to see Casterly Rock stretch above them like a lion roaring to the sunset. “Joanna redesigned the gardens here, I’ll be glad to see them properly this time,” Mother says. Elia holds Mother’s hand. Lady Joanna was Mother’s closest friend along with Queen Rhaella herself, but she died four years ago giving birth to her youngest son. Elia still remembers her funeral, of how Tywin’s face was half-murderous, half-hysterical when they laid Joanna’s bones to rest. Of how little Jaime wept and poor Cersei clenched her fists until they bled, of how little Tyrion Lannister wailed in the cold, quiet nursery until Elia herself took him into her arms and failed to see the supposed monster in a babe’s body. She almost wishes this will be the first time she meets the Lannisters, as their grief still hurts her own heart to remember.

But now they’ve come on far happier business, and Elia hopes that Mother shall finally find some peace about Joanna’s passing. They are welcomed with all the fanfare that a rich and great house always gives to its equals. Tywin sits on his golden throne, flanked by Cersei and Jaime. Cersei is exquisite, long blonde waves the exact color of gold to her slim waist and her green eyes cool and clear as jade in her lovely face. If only Cersei didn’t look down at them like they were paupers come clinging to Tywin’s feet, such a pity. And Jaime…well, Elia must hold back the urge to wring her hands or mess with her hair. He is just as lovely as his sister, almost as tall as Oberyn with firm shoulders and a knight’s muscles beneath his doublet. His golden hair curls against his neck and from her position not five feet from him, she can smell the faintest hint of sandalwood. Elia has always liked a man who wasn’t too skittish of femininity to appreciate well-groomed hair and cologne. And his eyes, as emerald as his sister’s but there’s no derision or guile there. Just polite consideration, turning to happiness when Elia smiles at him.

Elia curtsies again when she is called to present herself, and when she holds out her hand Jaime is quick to kiss it. She shivers, ever so slightly, from the warmth of his lips. “It is an honor to meet you, princess,” he says.

“The honor is mine, my lord,” she says. “Or is it my lord knight now? I heard you were knighted for your valor against the Kingswood Brotherhood.”

Jaime grins and ducks his head until Cersei clears her throat and he stands up straight. “Yes, Ser Arthur Dayne knighted me. It’s a bit of a long story and a…less than gentle one, it may not be fit for a gracious princess as you.”

Elia sniffs slightly, not enough to show real offense. Just to tease, as she wishes to see him laugh. “Fear not, my lord knight, I shan’t faint on your marble floors. I am merely curious of what strength a man yourself must possess to be knighted by the Sword of Morning.” Mother, smiling like a viper, suggests that Jaime could escort Elia around the castle and tell his tale while she and Tywin discuss some business. Oberyn and Cersei could escort each other as well, with Ashara as a chaperone. Tywin allows it, even with Cersei wrinkling her nose and Oberyn twisting his lips. Elia murmurs to Jaime, “You may need that strength to keep my brother in line,” and to her delight he quietly laughs. He has a nice laugh.

Casterly Rock is massive, gold gilt everywhere from the walls to the ceilings to even the floor. Sunspear is a provincial merchant’s villa in comparison. But all its ostentatious luxury cannot keep her attention, as she is wrapped up in Jaime’s story. Elia has never seen battle—how could she? It is not her place as an untried princess with no martial calling. But his words are vivid, describing Lady Jeyne Swann’s bravery and how he crossed words with the wicked Smiling Knight and lived. There are moments when even he is awestruck, especially when he talks about how the Kingsguard finally defeated the Brotherhood. “And after Ser Arthur allowed him to take a fresh sword, he said he desired Dawn the most above any mere steel. Ser Arthur said, “Then you shall have it, ser,” and with three mighty blows he shattered the Smiling Knight’s shield, sword and shoulders.” Jaime shivers and Elia with him. “Then Ser Arthur knighted me, right there in the kingswood. He said I deserved the honor no matter my age, as a man twice my age would’ve run screaming from such a fight.”

Elia smiles and pats his arm. “I concur with the Morning, my lord knight.”

Jaime quickly looks away, and mutters, “Just…just Jaime is fine, my princess.”

She leans in and says, “And just Elia is fine, Jaime.” Jaime. She likes the sound of it on her tongue. He says her name, and she likes the sound of it on his tongue as well.

Cersei groans and complains that they’re being disgusting. Elia turns to tell the girl to mind her business, but then Oberyn adds, “This is just the first of it, my dear lady. Soon they will swoon to send each other love notes scented with roses and jasmine, and then Elia shall threaten to run away into the night if she cannot be with her Ser Jaime, and then we shall all go to war—”

“Yes, we shall go to civil war when I stab your heart out with your own spear.”

Oberyn sticks his tongue out at Elia and Cersei smirks a touch. Then a servant comes to call Elia to Tywin’s solar with Mother, and she stills in fear. Elia takes a calming breath, disassembles and reassembles from a giggling lady to a firm-handed princess. She is here for her mission, her venture, and she will achieve it.

In Tywin’s solar, with portraits of previous Lord Lannisters on the walls around them and enough gold to feed Sunspear’s shadow city for a year, Elia makes her case. She does not bore him with her research on agricultural output of various regions in Dorne and the Westerlands, as she’s written them all down on starched paper and bound for his convenience. He gives them a once over as she describes what he will truly care about: the economic and political advantages of her idea. She emphasizes the benefits for the Westerlands, knowing that there shall be no charity from Lord Lannister. “The costs for the first two to three years shall outweigh the returns, I’ve outlined my calculations on this ledger. However, with the projected yields of the target crops and spices growing each year as stated on that ledger, and with the recommended sale prices to both Westerosi and Essosi markets, I suspect that we will recoup the initial investment after five years and double in seven. The Westerlands gets their cut as calculated here to do with as you please, my lord. If we keep the glasshouses under strict jurisdiction of the joint Dorne-Westerlands alliance, the Reach shall be forced to contend with us.” Elia allows herself to smirk. “The Tyrells have their breadbasket of wheat, this is true. But the smallfolk and petty lords suffer from scurvy and blood-gums like the Vale and North do. When they see their own people coming south for food, and see foreign ships in Lannisport and Sunspear, they will learn to treat the Westerlands and Dorne with greater respect.”

Tywin raises an eyebrow. “And you’ve come to all of these conclusions on your own?”

“My mother instilled within me a sense of responsibility for my people, and for Westeros as a whole. Should we not strive to better ourselves and our kingdoms?” Elia lowers her gaze. “I may not be strong enough to wield a sword or a ride a horse across the desert and back, but I am determined to do right with what tools I have.”

Tywin is silent for a moment, and Elia refuses to fidget or fill the air with worthless small talk. Then finally he nods. “I will consider your venture, princess.” And Elia can breathe just a touch easier.

They stay for two full moons, and the better part of a third, Elia and Mother in hot debate with Tywin and his brother Kevan over the terms of her venture. Tywin wants control over every aspect of it, as he’s putting in a larger investment, but he is not the only one funding the ships and glasshouses! Elia prides herself on never letting herself flush with anger or scream at Tywin for being overly difficult. Instead she does that into her pillow at night, and vents to Ashara and Oberyn in Old Rhoynish about how Tywin is a born and bred asshole. Sometimes she huffs around Jaime and Cersei, who are surprisingly sympathetic. Cersei even offers advice on how to use Tywin’s generally low opinion of women against him, as in her own words, “Lord Lannister he may be, but someone ought to remind him that a woman is more than just merely a sheath and baby sack!” Elia and Ashara commiserate with Cersei over that unfairness, while Oberyn keeps well away from that wildfire topic. If he fathers another bastard, Mother will surely cut off his cock!

Jaime listens to her too. He listens to her talk about Dorne, about dancing under the full moon, about how to write in special curved letters that are easier to understand when his thoughts scramble and he can hardly make sense of text in a book. She listens to him too, about his friends at Crakehall and Ashemark, about the history of the Kingsguard, about how to dry Summer Sea salts in a handkerchief lined with peppermint and use it to restore herself whenever she feels faint. He leads her down to the market at Lannisport and horse riding in the Westerlands forests, speaking all the while about everything and anything. Cersei tells him to stop overwhelming Elia but Elia doesn’t mind. She loves his genuine excitement, the way he moves his hands when he speaks. The sound of his voice, his Westerlands accent and the way his lips move, Elia is entirely entranced. How nice it would be to feel those lips on hers, she thinks when he smiles and japes and frowns in thought. How nice it would be to hear certain words in his voice, and gaze into those emerald eyes until their color is burned into her soul. Elia breathes not a word of this to anyone, not even Ashara; she cannot bear the heartbreak of getting her hopes up and then never marrying on account of her illnesses and Dornishness.

One night finds Elia venting again. “And he talked right over me as if I hadn’t been waiting for him to shut his mouth for the past fifteen minutes, _me cago en sus pinches sugerencias! A tomar por culo!”_ Ashara bends over in helpless giggles. Elia growls and pulls up her stockings and throws a gown over her kirtle. “Come, surely the twins are still awake.” Oberyn is asleep and Elia knows better than to wake her brother from his beauty rest. Unfortunately, Cersei and Jaime also seem to be asleep. Elia sighs and wanders down the gilded halls arm-in-arm with Ashara in search of something to occupy her frayed mind. The quiet is stifling. But then Elia hears faint crying from one of the rooms.

A guard stands outside the door and Elia asks, “Is there something wrong, good ser?”

The guard doesn’t meet her eyes. “It is just Lord Tyrion, do not trouble yourselves.”

Elia frowns. She hadn’t seen the child since she arrived, and assumed he was staying with a relative. To know he’s been here this entire time, locked away… “May we enter, good ser? We mean no harm nor trespass.”

“My princess, I’m afraid that it’s forbidden—”

“Elia? What are you doing here?”

Elia turns to see Jaime in his nightclothes, holding a candle and something bundled in a handkerchief. She smells apricots, and he must have hidden a handful of apricot tarts from dinner. She says, “I wanted to see if Tyrion was ok, I heard him crying.”

Jaime dismisses the guard with a touch of defiance that reminds Elia of Mother’s stories about Joanna. Joanna always got what she wanted, and now so do her children. Inside the nursery is little Tyrion, his head oversized and limbs undersized for his body and his eyes both black and green. But from how Tywin refuses to acknowledge that he has a second son, and from how Cersei makes sharp little japes with all the cruelty of a young girl-woman, Tyrion ought to have horns and a tail. Instead he is just a little boy, who wipes his tears away and squeaks, “Jaime!”

“I brought you sweets,” Jaime says. His face is soft in the candlelight, indulgent and sad when Tyrion waddles up to hug his leg. “And I brought friends too. Tyrion, this is Princess Elia and Lady Ashara. They’re all the way from Dorne.”

“Dorne?” Tyrion looks up at Elia with his mismatched eyes, and they’re big and round and entirely guileless. “Is it true that Dorne still has the bones of Meraxes?” He lights up, and he speaks like a boy of seven rather than a boy of four. “In my book about dragons, it says that Meraxes crushed House Uller’s castle when she fell! She was huge!”

Jaime looks at Elia and Ashara in mortification, but Ashara just winks and tells a star-struck Tyrion, “I saw the skull once at the Red Keep. An entire family of smallfolk and their pigs could fit in her jaws.” She lightly pinches one of Turion’s rosy cheeks. “And the teeth were as long as your brother’s arm, and sharp as a sword!

Tyrion practically vibrates in excitement, and Elia’s heart melts. She says, “You’re very smart, Tyrion. Maybe we can craft a ship as big as her and Balerion combined, and we can sail off the edge of the world.” She leans in and whispers, “I’m a little afraid of that. Do you think we’ll be ok?”

“Of course.” Tyrion puts his hands on his hips. “Boys grow up to be knights, and knights protect princesses. I’ll protect you.” He looks up at Jaime. “And he will too. Jaime is the best knight ever!”

Tyrion is sweet as any child alive, and before Elia knows it, they spend two full hours playing with him and telling stories. Ashara fills his mind about the mermaids in the Torentine that lead sailors to their doom, and Elia tells the tale about the fiery djinns in the desert who drink pulque and shriek like shadowcats, and Jaime makes them all laugh about Lann the Clever who took the form of a cat and snuck into Casterly Rock to steal away his beloved Jocasta.

Tyrion doses off in Jaime’s arms, and Elia runs her fingers through his hair. It’s streaked white and gold, and runs like silk against her skin. “What shall become of him?” she asks. “I’ve never met a boy of four who can read proper text and speak like that, will he be a maester one day?”

“Tyrion wants to, but Father would never allow that.” Jaime rests his cheek on Tyrion’s head. “He will just lock him away here forever, and Cersei doesn’t care because she hates him for Mother dying, but I can’t stand the idea.”

Elia hesitates, then rests her hand on his shoulder. “Maybe when you’re older and more accomplished, more Smiling Knights to your name, you can convince him. My brother Doran taught me much about getting stubborn parents to listen. Or maybe Lord Tywin will go back to Kings Landing to be Hand again, and then you can send Tyrion to Oldtown while he’s looking the other way.”

Jaime gives her a smile, a sweet thing that she’s so quickly come to cherish. “Maybe I’ll have to marry a strong wife who can scare him into compliance.”

Elia arches her brow. “Jaime, scaring men into compliance is the calling of every wife.” Ashara whispers that it’s time to return to their chambers, and Elia stands up. “It was nice of you to let us play with him. Good night, my lord knight.”

“It was nice of you to stay.” Jaime, his eyes never leaving hers, kisses her hand. Elia shivers, and there’s desire in his gaze. Does he see that same desire in her own? “Good night, Elia.”

Elia goes to bed dreaming of gold and saffron, and Ashara teases her mercilessly for the rest of their stay in Casterly Rock. Cersei never quite befriends to them, but she is ever quick to trade barbs and gossip, and that’s enough for now. Oberyn is fond of riling up the little lioness as if she’s another kid sister to torment. Mother watches them all with sharp black eyes, and Tywin is cold as ever but nods at Elia when she enters his line of sight. Eventually Dorne and the Westerlands form a joint association to create glasshouses in Dorne and experimental farms in the Westerlands, as funded by Houses Martell, Lannister, and a few other greater houses. On their last full day in Casterly Rock, Mother and Tywin are in the solar discussing more business and the children left to their own devices.

Ashara sighs and says, “It’s a bore to wait on our elders like perfect little heirs. What do the Lannisters do for fun here?”

The Lannisters cliff jump, it turns out. They strip to their breeches and kirtles, and Cersei begrudgingly shows Elia and Ashara how to secure their skirts into makeshift pantaloons so that their modesty is kept and they may swim easier. There are no cliffs at Sunspear or the Water Gardens to jump from, and staring down at the Sunset Sea below Elia pales in apprehension. Suppose she drowns and they really do go to war? But then Cersei scoffs, and says, “If you’re really here to snatch my brother away, don’t be a craven about it!” Elia sniffs, sticks up her chin, and throws herself screaming into the waters below.

It’s a rush of pure joy, like jumping over a ditch on a sand steed with the wind in your hair and the sun on your back. Elia hits the water and resurfaces just in time to see Oberyn flop into the water. She laughs at him, and Ashara splashes her with water. Then Cersei comes down with absurd grace, and Elia concedes, “I misjudged you, that was far more fun than it looked.”

“Of course, why do you think we’d bother with something we disliked?” Cersei calls up to Jaime, “Quickly now, you’re keeping us all waiting!” Cersei rolls her eyes. “I really do recommend you stay away from him, princess. There’s not a man more insufferably dramatic in all of Westeros.”

“Have you met my brother?” Oberyn whines that there’s salt water up his nose and Cersei snorts. Even her laughter is nice to hear, and Elia hopes that one day Cersei will come to be her friend.

Jaime jumps, and for a moment he’s suspended in the sea wind and sunlight. He’s a flash of gold, and Elia sees a flash of gold in her future: golden dresses, gold in the treasury, golden piles of saffron, gold banding around her finger. Then Jaime splashes down and Elia shrieks from the wave hitting her in the face. Cersei laughs, a belly laugh along with Oberyn, and Elia declares war upon them. She splashes Cersei in the face, who retaliates with seaweed flung into Elia’s hair.

When Jaime reappears behind Elia and hoists her up by the waist, she calls out, “Treachery! Assassination! Thy name is Lannister!” She dissolves into giggles when Jaime pulls her away from the group, declaring that he shall hold her ransom for a thousand blood oranges. She spins around, her skin slick and slippery from the seawater, and dunks him in the water. Then everyone is in a pile, splashing and yelling and daring each other to jump off more rocks. When they are too tired to stay afloat, they rest on the beach and try their hand at burying Oberyn alive.

This is how Mother and Tywin find them, reddened and tanning under the sun, sand in their hair and seaweed in their pockets. Jaime’s arm is around Elia’s shoulders, and she holds it in place in a fit of sudden rebellion. Let them see! Everyone must know by now! Mother smiles in the way that promises Elia and Oberyn a brutal thrashing with her slippers. Tywin just stares at Cersei, who flushes dark red and crosses her arms, and at Jaime, who raises his chin and stands tall. Mother sighs, and says to Tywin, “They’ve forced our hand, then. If they’re brazen enough to cliff jump with no chaperones other than their accomplices, then who’s to say Elia won’t abduct Jaime in the night?”

Tywin purples. And Elia and Jaime are betrothed, to be married at the end of the year in full golden splendor. Elia gasps, clasping her hands to her mouth, and asks Mother is she is speaking the truth. Mother asks, “What did you think we were discussing when we’d send you out of the room?” and Elia smiles so widely she fears her face will simply crack into pieces.

That night, when they are all washed and dressed and soundly chastised by their parents until Elia prays that Jaime never knows the wrath of Mother and the dreaded chanclas, Elia and Oberyn sit in their chambers with a pitcher of wine between them. Poor Ashara is fast asleep, worn out from cliff jumping and Mother verbally tearing her in half for being a poor chaperone. Oberyn toasts her, “To your betrothed. I’ve seen the way he makes you smile, and I cannot find much fault in him. Even if he is a stuffy Lannister.”

Elia clinks her cup against his. “May my marriage be as rich as our kingdoms soon shall be.”

Someone knocks on the door. Before Oberyn can demand who it is, Jaime slips inside. “Forgive me for the late hour,” he whispers, “I’m not supposed to be here. You leave tomorrow and I wanted to say goodbye without Father breathing down my neck.”

Oberyn yawns and declares that he is far too exhausted to keep drinking and must retire to bed. He lazily draws out a dagger and points it at Jaime, who audibly gulps. “Don’t think of harming my sister, a plague on your house if you dishonor her, they’ll never find the body, you know the script.” Oberyn pauses, then nods at Jaime. “I think it’ll be nice to have another brother.”

Jaime smiles at him. “I think it will too.” Then when Oberyn is in bed and all the household is asleep and the waves roll outside the window, it’s like Elia and Jaime are the only two people in the world. Elia invites him to sit next to her, and her heart races when their knees brush together. He licks his lips, then says, “I know I’ve only properly known you for about three moons now, and it’s—I thought I’d have more time to grow into being a man rather than a green boy before I—ah, this is jumbling up, I—”

Elia takes his hand and his words still. They look at their hands, how his golden skin compliments her olive skin. How in the moonlight they are the same color. “I always knew I would marry,” Elia tells him. “I didn’t know to who, or when, but I knew it was my fate as a Princess of Dorne. But I admit, I’m nervous too.”

“Why?” And there is such sincerity in his eyes that Elia wonders where such a man has been hiding in the stifling social strata of the Westerlands. “You are one of the most graceful women I know, a true princess. And you’re intelligent, Father and Uncle Kevan whisper to each other how thankful they are that you’ve not set your plans against them and now they can reap the benefits. And when you were playing with Tyrion that night, you were just so…” He squeezes her hands. “I knew then I always wanted to see you like that. Happy and lovely. I’m worried I don’t know how though, I don’t want to disappoint you.”

Elia giggles, and dares to rest her hand on his shoulder. “Are you reading my thoughts, Jaime? Even when I first saw you I didn’t know what to do with myself, you’re so—you’re so lovely it’s like a dream.” Her voice trails off, because they are closer now, close enough she can count the faint freckles on his nose. See his eyelashes, see his lips and how smooth and soft they’ve always been against her knuckles. What would it be like to have them against her own?

He whispers into the breathless space between them, “May I?”

“Yes,” and he tilts her chin up and she’s kissing him, and his lips are softer than she dared imagine. Soft and warm and a perfect fit, when she tilts her head and their noses brush past each other and her hands grip in his silky hair and his strong hands rest on her waist—oh, this so different than kissing Arron and Larra. This is like cliff jumping, like the signed contract in her ledgers, like seeing the future.

And her future is with Jaime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My facecast for Elia is Rania Benchegra, and Ashara is Rico Crusset with the Dayne purple eyes.
> 
> Does anyone have an idea for a name for this AU’s Rhaenys? Obviously she’s not going to be named that, but (spoilers) there is going to be another daughter named after Joanna. So she needs a name!
> 
> I was thinking that Rohanne was a cute name and it’s Jaime’s great-grandmother’s name so it has precedent? Maybe Leonora since that sounds very Lioness of Lannister-y? Merianne is a “Westerlandized” version of Meria so that could also work? What do you think?
> 
> There are quite a few changes from here and canon, which doesn’t really matter in the long run because this a fluffy Nothing Bad Happens To My Ship AU. But I’ll give a tl;dr on what’s changed:
> 
> -Since Joanna died when Jaime and Cersei were eleven instead of seven, she kept them separated and eventually they stopped being incestuous and are now just normal brother and sister who love each other a lot and like to dunk on each other
> 
> -Also since Cersei had Joanna’s influence on her and Tywin (nearly double the years of Tywin laughing) for much longer, she doesn’t hate Tyrion as much as she hates him in canon. She still blames him for her mother’s death and thinks he’s grotesque, but honestly she cares a lot more about making her dad proud and protecting Jaime from Grasping Hussies™ and learning to be friends with Elia and Ashara. So no child abuse yay!
> 
> -Tywin is much less of a prick here because, as explained with Cersei, Joanna lived longer and he sees his children not as pawns for family success but as actual children. He does genuinely care about the twins, and doesn’t want Tyrion dead (although he really needs to give poor Tyrion a hug smh)
> 
> -Elia still has health problems due to being born a month too early, but since she was at the end of Sunspear’s succession line she grew up under much less stress. And as a result she’s not as healthy as a horse, but she’s much healthier than in canon. Not being married to a fuckboy will certainly help!


	2. Jaime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story has no set update schedule, as I'm writing it around writing my other major story. So while it might be a while until I post again, here's another chapter!

Jaime is blessed unlike most men in Westeros, perhaps in the whole world. He is able of body and mind, he has never known hunger or genuine fear for the future. He has a lovely sister who challenges him and never lets him be idle, he has a little brother who he adores and is adored by in return, and two older men who shall be the older brothers he never had before. He got to know Mother for eleven years, more than his best friend Addam did and more than Tyrion did. He got to see how Father loved Mother, how he honored and respected her—he got to learn how a true man treats his lady wife.

And now, with him standing in the sept within Casterly Rock, and all the gold and jewels glittering around him like stars, he gets to marry Elia.

Their wedding is something he doesn’t have the most input in, aside from the feast and the tourney to celebrate it. Cersei throws herself into it, declaring that her twin shall have nothing but the best and everyone must match her standards. Jaime is happy that Cersei is finally warmed to Elia, in her prickly and prim way, as he knows it must hurt her to know that their lives will truly walk different paths. She wanted to wield a sword more than even he did, but instead she will wield a needle that Jaime himself finds more enjoyment in than her. He swears to find Cersei a true knight from the songs who is clever and strong-willed and won’t bore her or stifle her. It is what she deserves, just as Elia deserves.

Oh, Elia. How many love letters have they written each other in the months leading to this altar? How many songs has he serenaded at her window when he rode to Sunspear to present her with a name day gift? And how many kisses will he give her today and for the rest of their lives, how many gifts and walks along the beach and midnight meetings on balconies to talk about their dreams and leaning on each other, trusting each other? Jaime is excited at the prospect of losing count.

Father stands tall and proud in the crowd, his eyes glittering with something like softness. Father is not an expressive man, not even when Mother was alive, but Jaime knows he is happy to see Jaime wed to an intelligent and beautiful princess. Jaime looks at him, and Father smiles back at him, and the rare sight startles Jaime. Jaime’s uncles and aunts are proud as well, on account of their Lannister blood, but they give Jaime indulgent smiles.

Opposite the Lannisters are the Martells—Princess Loreza, Prince Lewyn on loan from the kingsguard, and Oberyn and Doran. Oberyn gives him a wink, and Doran a respectful nod. Loreza is as sharp-eyed as ever, giving every inch of the sept a once-over. Jaime hopes he impresses them all in his gold and red samite, he doesn’t want them to regret honoring Jaime with Elia’s hand. He also hopes that when Elia and he have children, they shall all dote upon them and make them feel surrounded by love.

The constant lingering terror that Elia shall die in the birthing bed curdles his guts, but he forces the thought away. He banishes it. Elia is delicate, ‘tis true, and disaster strikes when least expected…but they will be happy and be together until they are old and grey and great-grandparents. He is sure of it, he will see it done.

And then, finally, Elia enters. She is dressed in the Dornish fashion, with a flowing kirtle of orange and a glittering overgown filled with as many gems as gold in Casterly Rock’s treasury. Her long black curls, curls that Jaime loves to run his hands through, tumbles down her back and a little diadem the shape of a sun rests atop her head. There is a golden veil in the delicate Dornish style protecting her hair, Jaime remembers how she complained about it needing weeks to sew. 

She is the sun, the Sun of Dorne to be his bride, and her dark brown eyes glow in the crystal candlelight. Jaime’s gaze never leaves hers, not when their hands are bound nor when he pledges his troth. Loreza takes Elia’s orange and red Martell cloak from her shoulders, and Jaime cloaks her in Lannister red and gold. Oberyn and Doran twist a long wreath of flowers and golden coins around them in a figure eight, and Cersei hands them the rings. “Father, Smith, Warrior, Mother, Maiden, Crone, Stranger,” he declares, and he swears he can see the Maiden herself reborn into Elia’s face, “I am hers and she is mine!”

“With this kiss I pledge my love,” they say, and then Jaime cups her face and gently pulls her into a kiss. Their first kiss as bride and groom. He fears his legs won’t be able to keep upright. “And I take you for my lord and husband,” Elia says with a smile just for him.

They are one flesh, one heart, one soul, now and forever. And the sept cheers for their new Elia Lannister, for the Young Lion to have a lioness by his side. Jaime murmurs, “Prepare yourself, I heard the wedding feast has thirty courses.”

“Didn’t you hear? Now it’s thirty-two,” and they giggle together like two fools in love. Is that not what Jaime is, certainly? A fool for Elia, like how Florian was a fool for Jonquil. And it is so much fun to be the stupidest Lannister, when it gives him leave at the feast to jest with Elia about the oversized farthingale beneath Lady Crakehall’s skirts and poor Lord Lefford sweating after eating spiced lamb and Cersei dismantling a lordling’s noxious presence with just a few words. Prince Rhaegar himself is here with his mother Queen Rhaella and it seems all the unwed maidens sync their breaths with their silver prince’s—even Cersei is awestruck for him! Jaime wriggles his eyebrows at her when he catches her giving the prince cow-eyes, and she snaps out of it to steal the last lemon cake from his plate. Brat.

Their guests toast him, first Father then Loreza then Rhaegar and all their bannermen. Oberyn’s toast is rather saucy, extolling Jaime and Elia to be as Jaehaerys and Alysanne. Jaime flushes. One son would be enough for him! One son to be a Lord Lannister, and perhaps a daughter with Elia’s beautiful dark eyes and Mother’s golden hair. Cersei toasts them, and says with an unusually quiet voice, “Elia, I am glad to have you as a sister, rather than all the other women in Westeros.” If Jaime weren’t already embarrassingly saccharine from Father’s toast that Mother would be so proud to see Jaime, this would make Jaime cry.

Elia holds his hand openly and boldly no matter how westermen tongues wag and how Dornish lips smirk. “Mother shall sing a traditional Dornish song for us once the tables are cleared,” Elia tells him. “Be sure to dance with me so that our guests are not intimidated.”

“I was planning to dance with you until our shoes wore out, like the twelve dancing princesses and their otherworldly suitors. I am rather spry for a soldier of thirty-five, after all.” Jaime kisses her cheek and he feels her laughing. “Sixteen certainly feels like thirty-five. Soon you will be trapped with an old man whose bollocks drag on the ground and who requires a cane to go to—”

“Shut up Jaime,” Cersei says with a sweet smile. “We’ve already paid for the wedding, it’s too late to scare her off.”

“Fear not for me, Cersei,” Elia says. “When he’s too much, I’ll just swat him on the head like a golden retriever.”

“Yes, he certainly looks like one.”

Jaime laughs along with them. His wife (his wife!) and sister shall be the death of his ego. He is not Westeros’s youngest and brightest knight to them, he is but their annoying brother and—he grins, buoyant with giddiness. He is Elia’s husband! Jaime forces himself not to dance in his chair like a boy of five, as even Tyrion would outmatch his composure.

His little brother is seated next to their Aunt Genna, dressed in fine red cloth and acting with all the gravitas as a miniature of Father. Some lords open stare at him, and some ladies titter behind their painted fans. They can burn in the seven hells for all Jaime cares, as he cares about Tyrion’s happiness. An archmaester at the Citadel, maybe, or perhaps little Alysanne Lefford as his bride. The toddler’s eyes are remarkably wide set, and it’s too early to tell but he guesses she will have the gap teeth of her mother…Jaime stops himself. He is being cruel, and the girl giggles and laughs as cheerfully as Tyrion did when he was her age. Who is he to act towards her as others act towards his brother? Jaime hopes she will grow into those eyes and be a happy lady; he hopes that more people can be as happy as he is.

And once the tables are cleared and some lords look fit to bursting, Jaime leads Elia to the dance floor. Their first dance set is to traditional music, “Alysanne” and “Six Maids in a Pool” and whatnot. Rhaegar plays them a beautifully sad song on the high harp that brings the hint of tears to Cersei’s eyes, and brings Jaime to cradle Elia close. Then come the crowd pleasers, like “Iron Lances” and “The Bear and the Maiden Fair”. The wine flows and lords cheer and Cersei smirks at all the knights come to ask for her favor in the upcoming tourney and Elia glows with happiness. Rhaegar even dances with Cersei, as Jaime will not let go of Elia. Perhaps he will do for Cersei, even if he is rather melancholic. When the stars are bright and the moon hangs full, Loreza brings out a curious stringed instrument vaguely like a lute. Elia says it’s a Dornish guitar, and Loreza’s companions pull out what Elia calls and oud—not a guitar, but similar, and also not a lute either, but somewhat similar, Jaime cannot keep all these names straight—and a Rhoynar fiddle and drums and castanets for their fingers.

Their music is unlike anything Jaime’s heard outside of the streets of Sunspear’s shadow city. It’s fast, and thrums the blood and the lungs—it is impossible not to dance to, no wonder the Dornish are known for dancing the night away. Elia leads Jaime about in a dance that doesn’t have much form other than keeping in tempo with the song, and Jaime pants and laughs to keep up with her. It’s fun, now that’s a first! Addam pulls a Westerling girl to the dance floor with them, and Oberyn claims his new sister, and Doran his beautiful wife Mellario. More and more people join, and Jaime is glad they seem to be having fun even if it’s unknown to them.

Loreza sings and Jaime is shocked by how powerful and rich her voice is. She is a rather quiet woman, never needing to raise her voice due to the power of her presence, but now her voice rings out over the courtyard in a language Jaime doesn’t recognize.

_“Ayer conocí un cielo sin sol, y un hombre sin suelo._

_Un santo en prisión, y una canción triste sin dueño.”_

Elia claps along with the other Dornishmen, and Jaime joins in. It is hard to clap and dance, and Elia even sings along with her mother! He wonders if he ought to teach her how to wield a sword, as most other knights would dream to have the coordination she does!

_“Y conocí, tus ojos negros._

_Y ahora sí que no, puedo vivir sin ellos yo!”_

Oberyn grabs onto his free hand, and soon there is a chain of dancers moving about in a circle. In the middle of the circle are Dornish dancers, men and women alike. Ashara, dressed in her lovely lavender silks and her laughing purple eyes winking at Elia, does a mesmerizing dance. She stays in one place and moves her hips and arms like striking serpents, like ocean waves, like the sort of thing to give Father an aneurysm. Jaime gapes at her and Elia whispers in his ear, “And that’s the modest dance. Shall I show you the more…private version tonight?”

Jaime imagines Elia, with her black eyes burning like coal and her hips swaying—he burns bright red. He hisses at her, “Do not tempt me to run off with you right this second!”

Everyone claps along and stomps their feet, and Elia sings into Jaime’s ear,

_“Viajé de Ny Sar, hasta Abulu! Fui desde el Norta haste el polo sur!_

_Y no encontré ojos así, como los que tienes tú!”_

Jaime doesn’t know the exact words, but he knows the meaning when he gazes into her eyes. He breaks away from the circle and brings her with him. He sees the love there, the desire, and he wonders if she can feel how he burns for her. How he’ll pledge his sword and his seat and his life for her, if she’ll have it. He kisses her hands. He is her husband now, she’s chosen him.

Elia grins, and Jaime decides to damn the wedding. His blood is hot and the night is young and he wants his wife! And he shall not suffer a bedding with these grasping lordlings and tittering hens! He sweeps her into his arms. “Father,” he cries out to him. Father looks at him with Elia’s arms around his neck, and he just sighs. Then he nods, and waves them away.

And with permission granted, Jaime runs out of the courtyard with Elia laughing into his ear. He hears Oberyn threatening to gut any men who will try and undress his sister. And he hears Cersei threaten to push little Melara Heatherspoon down a well if she tries and peeps on the newlyweds. It is quite wonderful to have such terrifying siblings, as now Jaime can be alone with Elia.

They can be alone together, in a way that Jaime resolutely refused to think about for the past year because it’s mortifying. He’s never been with another girl before, he only has the hazy fantasies of what he’d certainly liked to do with Elia. But what if he screws up? Jaime kicks open the doors to their chambers— _their_ chambers, they’ll be sharing now, his heart races in his chest. He sets her down and opens his mouth to say something charming. Then he blushes a furious red and busies himself with lighting a fire. It can be cold at night by the sea, he doesn’t want her catching a chill.

“Jaime,” she murmurs. He turns around to see her smiling at him, tender and sweet. She cups his face in her hands and he kisses her palms. “Have you…have you never done this before?”

“No,” he admits. “I’m sure we’ll figure it out but I’m at a bit of a loss. Have you?”

“No. I was hoping you had some idea.” Then they both giggle from nerves and their own foolishness. Then she bids him to sit on the bed. She fiddles with the clasp holding her cloak to her shoulders and leans in to whisper in his ear, “I wasn’t joking about the dance, though.” Jaime gasps as she lets it fall to the ground. The simple act of disrobing her cloak electrifies every inch of his body, and the firelight casts sensual shadows up the wicked contours of her body. Then she undoes the lacing of her outergown. “Let’s see if that helps.”

It does.

At some point during the night, with their limbs in a tangle and Jaime kissing her neck and Elia sighing his name, Jaime decides it’s for the best that he’s such a green boy and a fool. Elia can be his wife, and his partner, and his teacher. And he will be her husband, and her partner, and her most enthusiastic pupil. And maybe one day they’ll be parents, and grandparents—Jaime loses his train of coherent thought when Elia grins down at him and pins his wrists to the bed. Oh yes, this helps, this is exactly where he belongs. He arcs up and she cries out and yes, this is exactly where he’s meant to be, with who he’s meant to be. How blessed he is to know this.

Dawn rises with golden light, making her olive skin glow like the sun itself. She is fast asleep against his chest, and Jaime carefully, gently runs the tips of his fingers across her body. From her brow, down her strong Dornish nose across her cheekbones. Her lips, her jaw, her neck—gods but how he loves her neck, just like a swan—her shoulders and spine. Elia is a petite woman, she fits against him like a pearl in the shell, and the aching desire to be her shield from the harshness of the world squeezes around his heart. Elia stirs and Jaime splays his hand on the small of her back.

“Have you been awake long?” she mumbles.

Jaime kisses her forehead. “Not for long. I’m just…admiring you. I can’t believe you’re mine.”

She smiles, then wraps her arms around him and squeezes him tight. “I can’t either.” The warmth of the sun and her skin spurs Jaime to flip them over, and Elia’s laughter (his wife!) rings out as he kisses back down her neck to where they left off mere hours before. The tourney can wait, Jaime isn’t competing anyway, all that matters is the feeling of her all around him.

* * *

Tywin later tells him that it’s the honeymoon phase, the urge to spend every second with his wife (his wife!!) in a glow of happiness. And yet, Jaime never feels that phase come to a definite end.

When he stands proudly by Elia as the first ships of the Dorne-Westerlands venture sail to Essos and back, he still adores her in her brisk business manners as he does when they go swimming in the Sunset Sea. She is truly the sun bearing down on their venture partners, asserting her will until they give her the prices she wants—she is a lioness! He needn’t say anything at all, more’s the pleasure to watch her say, “As per my last letter, I do believe we’ve already settled this exchange rate, but if you have any more questions please feel free to ask me or the Lady Cersei.” Even the translator for the Yi-Tish merchants is awed by her, and Jaime grins to himself. Everyone aught to be awed by her.

When she confesses her fears that the lords and smallfolk of Casterly Rock still don’t respect her, he still feels that protective squeeze around his soul months after their marriage. Oh, he is not blind to how some people whisper about the Dornishwoman who ensnared his heart, as if he is a poor innocent fool to her evil machinations and wiles. What idiots. Jaime would bash all the men in the training fields for her honor, but instead he is obnoxious in his devotions to her. He buys her flowers and trinkets from the markets, he commissions seamstresses to make her flowing gowns, he funds the equipment for lesser born squires and pages in the name of their Lady Lannister—Jaime knows the worth of wealth and he buys their love for Elia. And in time, month by month, that bought love turns to genuine love for their gentle lady and Jaime is satisfied.

When they argue over stupid things like him falling from his horse out of distraction and her forgetting to eat her medicinal herbs out of complacency, he still pulls her into his arms every night and tells her how much he loves her. His aunt Genna says it’s a good sign that they let out their energies over small matters instead of bottling it up and blowing up over genuine issues. And Jaime knows he can be a foolhardy ass with an arrogant streak, just as Elia can be too stubborn for her own good and passive-aggressive when people touch upon her pride. He tells Elia as such during one of their arguments, and she goes silent out of shock then throws her head back and laughs a deep belly-laugh. Then she tells him they are both fools at heart, and that as long as he keeps her grounded in that fact she will never lose sight of their love. Jaime kisses her, just to see her grumble about cheating his way out of a proper fight.

Maybe Jaime is too entirely a fool, forever swept up in these feelings of joy. And that’s fine by him, as Elia illuminates his life and he will never get tired of bathing in sunlight.

When she falls pregnant though, the fear returns from where he banished it on their wedding night. Mother survived twins and a stillborn, but she did not survive Tyrion. And Jaime loves Tyrion, he adores his little brother…but he is so afraid Elia will die and he will turn out like Father, resenting one of his own children for existing. What if both she and their child die, as Addam’s mother did with his sister that never got to be? Jaime tries to pull away from Elia, to prepare himself for the worst. She does not let him.

“I’m going to be fine, Jaime.” His head is resting in her lap, against the small, firm swell of her stomach. In there is their child, their firstborn, and he feels the urge to weep. Elia runs her hands through his hair and it’s so soothing that he does weep. His shoulder wrack and she sighs and bends down to kiss his temple. “There is always that danger in every pregnancy, ‘tis true. But I do not intend to leave you ever in this life.”

Jaime wipes his eyes and looks up at her. How pathetic he must seem with his runny nose and red eyes! “Forgive me, I’m being stupid—”

She kisses him, even with how wet his face is. “And when I start crying over spilling tea and Cersei taking too long in the washroom, I expect you to forgive my own stupidity. That’s what it means to…to love someone, to forgive when they are afraid.” Jaime’s heart stops. Does she love him? Truly? He sits up straight, and begs her to say the truth: does she love him? She smiles and kisses his hands. “I love you, Jaime. I love you.” His heart soars and he hugs her as close as he dares. She giggles and says, “Didn’t you notice? I’ve loved you ever since you bought the hibiscus flowers for the gardens because you said you wanted to see me smile. I thought it was obvious when I entirely debauched you the night after you sent Gregor Clegane to the Wall.” She shudders. “He was aggressive, wasn’t he?”

“Aggressive? More like a slavering dog,” Jaime mutters. Hardly more than a boy himself and already a brute! Elia had his poor sister Celia and brother Sandor removed from the Clegane’s household into her own because Gregor left bruises all over her little arms. And then when Gregor thought to lay hands on his wife! Jaime cut off those offending hands and had him sent to the Wall; not even Father had anything to say against it, and commended Jaime for protecting his wife. The wife, that Jaime is in love with. He tells her so. “I love you, Elia. I’ve…I might’ve always loved you, ever since I first saw you. I don’t know. And I’m afraid you’ll die like Mother did, but I’m also excited to be a father.” He rests his hands on her belly. “We’re having a baby.” He sniffles and laughs at himself. “Forgive me, here I go again crying.”

She kisses his cheek. “We will have to be very forgiving of our babe when it’s born, because it will cry. All the time.”

He smiles. “Maybe because of you. I was a very content babe.”

Elia pinches him and he laughs and feels the weight of his fears lift from his shoulders. Elia is not Mother, and they will have this baby. This child. He imagines a little child with his golden hair and Elia’s light brown skin and Loreza’s cleverness and Father’s strength, and with happiness. Happiness and a mind entirely their own, that Jaime will protect with his life.

When Elia goes into labor on a cool autumn’s day, Jaime grips Cersei’s hand until their fingers are bone wife and she hisses in his ear, “She will be fine. You two will have a fine crop of sun lions, I will make it so even if I have to go in there and fight off the Stranger myself!”

And Elia lives. She lives, and a wriggling little baby wails at her breast. A boy, with a little tuft of golden hair and olive skin, and bright pale eyes that Father says shall turn to emerald green. Their son. They have a son. Jaime starts crying because he is a fool, and Elia cries too but there’s a giant smile on her face. “Welcome to the world, Tylan,” she says. Cersei sniffles too, and Father looks as happy as he was when Mother was alive.

Jaime kisses his tiny red cheek, and he is the softest thing in all the world. Tylan mewls and Jaime melts entirely. Elia is alive. Tylan is alive. And Jaime is the luckiest, most blessed man to have ever lived.

* * *

Tylan grows up into a happy toddler who runs before he walks and the ability to charm even the strictest of servants. Even when he throws a tantrum over not being able to roll around in the mud, and as a babe when he cries every night for the sake of crying, Jaime can never be angry at him. Frustrated, yes, frustrated enough to hand the babe off to a nursemaid and take an exhausted, painfully frail Elia out on a pleasure sail. But never angry, how could Jaime be truly angry at his little boy? His son, the child he and Elia (his wife! the mother of his child!) made. Whenever Jaime looks into Tylan’s big green eyes he wonders how he could have helped create something so precious.

But now that Tylan is old enough to tell them what he wants, and Elia is recovered from birth to pin him against the wall and demand another child—all is golden and grand. Tylan is the apple of Father’s eye, Tyrion’s littlest confidant, and Cersei’s partner in crime. Jaime doesn’t know who loves Tylan more, he or Elia, and decides there is no answer because Tylan has both their hearts in his little fists.

Jaime throws Tylan in the air and delights in his squeals. “Again, again!”

“Say please,” Elia calls out to them from her seat with Cersei in the shade. It is winter, and all the flowers in Mother’s gardens are asleep save for winter heather and pansies and camellias. But the air is thawing enough that she only needs two woolen shawls, and the sun is as bright as a summer’s day. Perhaps their next babe shall be born in spring, if waits long enough—Elia is seven moons gone with child and already looks big enough to pop! Jaime cannot wait for the sea to be warm enough that he can teach Tylan how to swim; he cannot wait for this new babe to be born so he can shower them and Tylan and Elia with love.

Tylan giggles and presses a smacking child-kiss to Jaime’s beard. “Please, Papa! Wanna fly!” And fly he does.

Elia reads her ledgers with Cersei helping as her equal. Cersei is more interested in the glasshouses than in finding a husband, much to Father’s irritation, but Jaime sees how happy it makes her to have her opinion valued and sought out for. She certainly has a much better head for numbers and “negotiations”/terrifying merchants to her will, and Elia herself credits Cersei for their venture’s increased profits. Elia first estimated that they would double the value of the venture’s investment after seven years. And yet not even four years later they have reached that goal, thanks to Elia and Cersei. The fact that now they have a fat treasury, and exotics fruits and teas at the dining table to the envy of the other Great Houses, only makes Father smugger. As all of the Westerlands know, when Father is smug, Father is happy.

Jaime sets Tylan down and gives him a banana, admonishing him to eat it carefully instead of smearing it on his face. Then he and his son plop down next to his favorite women in the world. “Are we rich yet?”

Cersei snorts and pinches his side. “I’m surprised you didn’t hear the wailing from the Tyrells. Their precious breadbaskets keep us all fed, yes, but we keep everyone salivating. The—” she checks her notes “—Sultan of the Moraqi Empire wants to do business with us since our saffron is of higher quality than the slop from Assha’i.”

“I knew it,” Elia says, practically preening. “They’re sending us their rice samples and farmers for the largest glasshouse near the Torrentine, there’s enough river water there to grow enough rice.” Jaime raises his eyebrows and Elia explains, “Rice is like wheat, but every grain is edible and you can make different kinds of foods with it. In Dorne we have a rice trade with the Summer Isles, but Moraqi rice is known to give a higher yield.”

“We’re going to undercut the wheat industry,” Cersei explains. “At least in Dorne and eventually the Westerlands. The more independent we can be on our own, the more power we have.” She twirls one of Tylan’s golden curls. “Doesn’t that sound fun, Tylan?” Her voice is as sweet as spring, even with Elia muffling her laughter. “Don’t you want to knock the Tyrells down a peg? Don’t you want power?”

“Power!” Tylan raises his banana as if it’s a sword and they laugh.

“What’s this about power?” Tyrion waddles up to them. Even Cersei in her good mood greets him as a sister ought to rather than a roommate. “Father received a letter from the king. It seems we shall have a Lannister princess after all, since Jaime stole the heart of our beloved sun lady and robbed the king of a Targaryen descended bride. The betrothal shall be announced publicly at the tourney at Harrenhal in the coming moon.”

They gasp. Cersei stands up and her emerald eyes burn with fear of the unknown. “Rhaegar or Viserys?!”

“The Silver Prince himself.” Cersei shrieks, then sweeps Tyrion up and kisses his cheek. She does the same to Tylan and Elia and Jaime, and Jaime laughs and spins her around. Tyrion raises a goblet of lemonsweet to them. “To our future Queen Cersei!”

To their future queen, and their future wealth, and the future babe in Elia’s belly…Jaime sees their future and it is golden. How blessed is he to share in it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to lostchildofthenewworld and her story “A Shadowed Path”. I suppose you could say that the Sultan of Great Moraq here is quite similar to Sultan Mehmed in her wonderful story. Also yes I cut off Gregor Clegane’s hands and send him to the Wall where eventually wildlings will use him as target practice for their arrows, while Sandor and their sister get to grow up in a relatively peaceful household. I Do What I Want.
> 
> The wreath of flowers and coins that Elia’s brother loop around Elia and Jaime is a wedding lasso/el lazo. It a symbol of everlasting love and unity that you sometimes see at Mexican weddings and I’ve always thought it was romantic lol
> 
> Loreza and Elia sing “Ojos Asi” by the legendary Shakira at the wedding, with a couple words changed to reflect that we’re in Westeros. In this AU it’s a traditional love song about a woman in love with a black-eyed Dornish rogue. And yes, medieval Moorish Spain had guitars! They were descended from Arabic ouds that came to Al-Andalus and were influenced by European lutes, and by the late 1400s there were guitarras not so different than the modern guitar. Flamenco dancing also descends from a form of belly-dancing from Al-Andalus, and you can see the similarities in the proud carriage of flamenco dancers and the way they move their hips and arms.
> 
> Also, yay baby #1! “Elia is too sickly to have given Jaime heirs so that’s why she didn’t marry him!!!!” maybe so in shit canon but sorry I don’t know her. Here, Jaime has a son and gets to be a father, and Tywin is practically skipping down the halls because his golden son has a golden heir, and Cersei and Tyrion are the best aunt and uncle. And, as she deserves, Elia is happy. There’s also a three-year gap between Tylan and baby #2, which gives Elia enough time between pregnancies to heal. None of that “She is infertile!!!” crap here either.
> 
> I sped through Tylan’s infancy because it summarized as “Baby is cute and cries a lot, Jaime is helplessly in love with his family” and we have more babies to go through. I’m better at writing parents and toddlers/children anyway since I’m an elementary school teacher and my 1st graders are my precious nuggets.
> 
> Tylan is certainly a precious nugget, and I think you know who is nugget #2! The tourney at Harrenhal is coming up, and it’s going to go both the way you think and out of left field. Mind the tags, everyone.
> 
> Next is the tourney at Harrenhal and baby #2’s birth! I wonder who it is~


	3. Cersei

It’s not that Cersei doesn’t want to marry Rhaegar. No, the idea of becoming queen—just as Father promised her years ago back when Mother was still alive—and wielding power as most woman can never dream of is something she likes. And it’s not that Rhaegar is unattractive. No, he is easily the most beautiful man she’s ever seen, with his silver-gold hair and indigo eyes and features as fine as spun glass.

But when he takes her hand and kisses it, when he dedicates his songs to her…he is so melancholic. She cannot bring him to smile, not truly. And she wants to make him smile as Elia makes her brother smile.

She wants what they have! Of course, it was _disgusting_ to watch them moon over each over when Elia first came to Casterly Rock, even she and Oberyn agreed on that! But the days turned to weeks turned to moons turned to years, and they never stopped mooning over each other. Cersei sees the way Elia makes Jaime laugh, makes him smile, makes him think. And Jaime is Cersei’s twin brother, he deserves the absolute best in life. Elia gives him that, and for that alone Cersei loves Elia, although she never dares admit as such. She would die of embarrassment if Elia knew how maudlin her thoughts were towards them.

Still, is it so odd to want what Jaime has? She cannot wield a sword, she cannot wear breeches, she cannot stray too far from womanly pursuits even with her business ventures…but can she find someone to make moon eyes with? To hold hands with, and swim in the sea with, and be a partner with? Her equal, as Jaime and Elia are, as Father and Mother were? Cersei fears she will never be Rhaegar’s equal, and that makes her wary of marrying him.

Still, it’s not like there’s anyone else of equal standing pressing a suit. And perhaps in time she can melt Rhaegar’s crystal exterior. This tourney will be the key, she knows it.

The tourney is at Harrenhal, a wretched monstrosity of a keep that ought to be torn down and started over anew. She eyes the fertile lands around the castle, she sees the potential for growth if only the Whents could afford it so maybe they should tear down their keep and sell it for parts to fund glasshouses and—Cersei scoffs at herself. She’s become no better than a farmer! But then again, if all empty-headed lords and ladies were more like farmers then Cersei would have better use of them. The only people she can stand are their Dornish associates, and really isn’t that a shame to Andal superiority? Maybe Dorne is full of wantons and scoundrels like the songs say, but neither Elia nor her mother or Ashara suffer fools and foolishness. It’s thanks to Elia that Cersei has a path in life at all, more than Cersei can say for the likes of Melara Heatherspoon!

Elia stays in the wheelhouse on their journey with Tylan, as she’s too heavy with child to sit a horse safely. Cersei and Ashara, come to join Elia’s household for the upcoming spring as Starfall has bored her silly, stay on their horses and exchange information. Gossip, as the menfolk would call it, but Cersei knows the power of what the servants whisper about.

It seems as if Brandon Stark got a bastard on some Northern lady and she was on her way to throw a gauntlet at Catelyn Tully when she miscarried it, such the scandal! Elbert Arryn is hopelessly in love with Celinda Whent if that rumor is true and it if is indeed true he ought to snatch her up at the tourney before some Frey degenerate does. And then there’s the business about Mina Tyrell running off with Paxter Redwyne after her idiot father wanted to marry her to a Florent second son. A _second_ son to beget big eared simpletons with! At least Mina has good taste, for a Tyrell. Elia hates Reachers but the Redwyne fleet is as great as the royal fleet if not greater, and it would be good to bring them into their venture. Maybe if the future Redwyne brats are comely they can squire for Jaime or wee Tylan. And then there’s Oberyn. Cersei laughs to herself; her foolish good brother shall be the dead of poor Prince Doran!

“I’ve heard that Prince Doran is seeking bride in both Dorne and Far Essos with a fat dowry and vicious temper for Prince Oberyn once he’s returned from exile,” Ashara says. “Someone to help tame our favorite rake.”

Cersei snorts. “May the gods help that future bride, he’s got a worse reputation than Brandon Stark and Robert Baratheon!”

“Maybe she’ll have to be worse than him,” and they both giggle over the idea of some tall imperious Essosi noblewoman with high-heeled riding boots and a harem, with Oberyn as her leading concubine. Then Cersei’s thoughts drift to Essos, as it tends to do now that she’s so invested in the Dorne-Westerlands venture. Soon a ship from Yi Ti shall sail to Lannisport laden with their teas and sail back home with Dornish-grown mangoes and peaches. What would she give to be on that ship, and press her venture to even more lands beyond the maps in Casterly Rock’s library…

They finally arrive, and Jaime is quite gallant in helping them from their horses and Elia from her wheelhouse. Cersei can sit a horse as well as any of the jousters at this tourney, but it’s always nice to have a helping hand. At the castle gates is Rhaegar and his own household. Cersei brushes at her skirts, blushing furiously. Does she make a poor impression? She still in her travelling dress, she doesn’t even have a comb!

Elia gives her a look, and Cersei calms herself. She is his betrothed, and one day she’ll be his queen. And there is no shame in being worn from travel. She curtsies before him, murmuring her pleasantries, and offers his hand. He bows and presses a kiss to that hand; as always, his lips are cool, the kiss perfunctory, and Cersei feeling like something is wrong.

And then comes the courting. Cersei doesn’t care much for the stuffy rules of courting, even more restrictive by Crownlands standards than by the Westerlands. Two chaperones, no kissing other than hand kisses, a hand’s span of distance between them at all times, the exchange of certain flowers and poems as determined by someone who lived a hundred years ago—how does anyone get anything done like this?! No wonder the Scab King sneered at Ashara’s possible prospects for Rhaegar, he must’ve had an aneurysm from horror at the wanton Dornish courting tradition of holding hands in public! Cersei tells Ashara and Elia so and they cackle with laughter.

Cersei wonders when she became such a bastion of defense for Dorne and all things Dornish. She decides, as she and all their party take a picnic by the God’s Eye’s shores, that it’s because of how quickly they accepted her. Her, a stranger to them with her only tie being Elia’s good sister. And yet even when Elia and Ashara first came to Casterly Rock they included her in their gossip and games, despite Cersei doing her best to scare them away. And during Elia and Jaime’s engagement, Elia stood up to Father and demanded that Cersei have a say in the venture. “She has a sharp mind and sharper tongue, all of which are essential in business,” she said. Cersei has been called shrewish for her nature all her life by her uncles and fellow ladies, and yet Elia saw it as a benefit. As a good thing, as something to like.

Cersei does her best to repay that consideration. She listens to Elia when she has her foolish fears about Jaime falling out of love with her when she is as fat as a cow—Elia could have three chins and grayscale and Jaime would still be writing love songs for her!—and their shared irritation in having to do twice as much as a man to get the same respect. Men. Cersei sniffs. Jaime is the best of men, and Father and her uncles, but most other men disappoint her.

Take Eddard Stark, who came on their picnic along with his sister Lyanna and his foster brother Robert who is supposedly Lyanna’s betrothed. Ashara is no shrinking violet, but she is a highborn lady and cannot be seen as the aggressor in a possible courtship. Especially not at Harrenhal where people would just love to gossip about the Laughing Maid of Starfall dishonoring herself! Poor sweet milquetoast Ned needs to take initiative instead of twisting his tongue up into a thousand knots whenever she looks at him. Jaime grins at Cersei and flicks his gaze at Ned who is stuttering his way through a story to Ashara. Cersei twists her lips in return. For all of the insipid, cloying sentimentality Jaime and Elia had when they first began courting, at least they could speak to each other. Cersei hisses at Robert, “Save your friend! Even the Green Men on the Isle of Faces can see that he’s bungling this up!”

Robert laughs and slaps Ned on the back. “Remember to breathe, Ned! Has your breath been stolen by someone?”

Ned turns bright red and Ashara teases, “I’m afraid my own has also been stolen. There be thieves at this tourney, keep yourself safe.” Cersei nods and sips at her oolong tea. Thank the gods for Ashara’s parents, who raised her with useful wit.

Robert and Ned have no wit to speak of, unless Robert’s stupid jokes pass a wit for men. Catelyn and Lyanna have some semblance of it, but it’s buried beneath Catelyn’s overly prim piety and Lyanna’s wildness. She sits on the ground with her legs crossed like a man in breeches! Not that Cersei gives much stock to the ways women must make themselves pretty for the menfolk…but isn’t she afraid the wind will blow up her petticoats? The again, if she’s aiming to seduce Robert that way, she might have the right idea.

Tylan crawls into Cersei’s lap and asks, “Auntie, want mango?” He hands her his own mango, a touch smushed by his little hand.

Cersei coos and kisses his cheek. “You want to share your treasure with me? Such a gallant knight you are!”

Elia laughs. “Shall you give him your favor for the joust? He is a favorite to win at the rings, despite his stature.”

Cersei gives Rhaegar a little smirk. “Perhaps, if my favor remains unclaimed.” Take the bait! Flirt back with her, she compels him!

He does not. Instead he just smiles, as placid as the lake. “You are a natural with children, Lady Cersei.”

Tylan snuggles close to her and Cersei rests her cheek on his curly golden head. She smiles and it’s in truth. “He is an absolute angel, I can hardly believe he’s my brother’s.” Jaime grouses that he was certainly the better-behaved twin in their childhood, and Cersei sniffs at him. “Of course you’d say that to try and assure our sweet Elia she’s not made a mistake in marrying a man who snores.” They all titter their laughter. Tylan apologizes to Cersei for dripping mango juice onto her skirts and she waves his worries away. She wipes them both clean with her handkerchief and admits, “See that? Sweet as spring. I want a son with hair as bright as gold, and a nature as gentle as the morning breeze.” She hears Catelyn sigh and wonders if she fears any children with Brandon will turn out to be as wild as him. Cersei would certainly fear that.

Catelyn tilts her head. There is judgement in her eyes that Cersei doesn’t like, the little trout. “If you and His Highness have a son, wouldn’t you want him to have silver hair? Like his father?”

Cersei narrows her eyes at her. What is _that_ supposed to mean? “Indeed, if we do that would be a lovely sight. But if my son’s a joy it hardly matters, don’t you agree?”

Lyanna shrugs and busies herself with trying to pour herself tea. Oolong tea is different than Westerosi tea, it requires straining; Cersei huffs and helps her with it before she spills on herself. “I’d hope to have joys for sons too. Sons and daughters equally…that is, if that’s my path in life.” She sighs and mumbles about her father’s plans and Cersei feels a touch of sympathy for her. Father tried to convince her to marry Addam, who is at least tolerable, but also that Crakehall twit and that Dondarrion infant. At least Robert is the Warrior made flesh, rather than some green boy.

Rhaegar asks Lyanna, “What path would you see for yourself, my lady?” Cersei hides her glare into Tylan’s hair. Oh, so now he’s interested in being an active participant in the conversation! Lyanna at least has the good grace to blush, other than Catelyn who is smiling her insipid smile—how dare she imply that Cersei is nothing but an airheaded chit only interested in farming golden-haired sons?! Cersei will not stand for that!

Lyanna smiles and says, “I will be a warrior. I won’t need a husband to protect me, as I will have a sword and shield of my own. We can be equals in that.” She glares down at her tea cup. “And if I have children, I will raise sons and daughters equally. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t be favored equally, no matter their sex.”

Ned winces and Cersei raises an eyebrow at Elia. Will Ashara be marrying into some backwards family where women are confined to the stockroom and the birthing bed? Absolutely not, Cersei will not have Ashara sent to such a place! Before Cersei can interrogate Lyanna, Elia intervenes. She takes Tylan into her arms and pats Cersei’s hand. “In Dorne we are much the same way, Lady Lyanna. If I had the inclining, I’d have a spear as a third arm—instead Cersei and I have found our inclination in leading business.” She motions at their picnic: the fruits, the tea, the delicate silk fans. “Perhaps all of Westeros shall benefit from our venture, in time.”

Ashara nods. “You must come see the glasshouses for yourself, Lord Ned. It’s a marvel what we can do down in the south thanks to this venture.” And Cersei sees her ploy: she shan’t be marrying North, she will be bringing Ned south! Cersei smiles. She knew her friend had some sense.

Catelyn raises her eyebrows. “You and Lady Elia run a venture?”

Cersei smirks. “I’m afraid we’re the only ones fit for the job.” Robert raises his cup at her, as do most of their guests. Even Lyanna murmurs something about wishing to take control of her own path just as Cersei has. As they all should! But then Cersei sees the way Rhaegar offers to lead Lyanna on their post-picnic walk around the lake, and Cersei simmers. That son of a witless bastard! Why is he _walking_ with _Lyanna Stark?!_

“I’ll tell Ned to ward his sister away,” Ashara soothes Cersei that night. “She’s just a maid, she’s never been south before and she has no idea about the implications.”

Cersei flings herself into bed. It’s hardly Lyanna’s fault that Rhaegar is such a prick, although she hopes that Robert will distract Lyanna from Cersei’s betrothed! Elia chuckles and brushes out Cersei’s braided updo. “I will pray to the Maiden to strike you with even more beauty tomorrow so that it blinds him.” She winces and rubs her stomach. “I should pray to the Mother too, to tell this babe to quiet down for bed.”

Cersei rolls over and stares at the ceiling of her tent. “I think we should pray to the Crone instead,” she says. “I think I need some wisdom, rather than beauty. There’s really not much more the Maiden can do on my behalf anyway.” Elia hits her with a pillow and Cersei shrieks. Then she pelts both of them with her pillows and blankets, and then Jaime joins in on the fun. They make such a racket that Father is forced to intervene, but the bit of fun helps clear Cersei’s mind.

The Crone compels her to be frank with Rhaegar, even with Ser Arthur Dayne and Jon Connington breathing down their necks. Jaime and Elia are always honest with each other, as were Father and Mother. “Do you truly wish for this betrothal to go through?” she demands. “Tell me now, and we can break it with little fanfare as your father shan’t announce it until the very end of the tourney. We can go our separate ways with no one the wiser.”

Rhaenys takes her hand in his. “I will do my duty by you,” he says. “You have no reason to fear that.”

“But are you _sure?”_ Cersei raises her chin. “I see the way you speak with the Lady Lyanna. I will be no one’s reluctant choice.”

To his credit he keeps her gaze, as she knows how poisonous her emerald eyes must be. “I will crown my love Queen of Love of Beauty,” he whispers. “And then all shall see where my heart stands.”

Finally! Cersei is satisfied until then, through all of the archery competitions and mummer’s plays and jousts, too many jousts. Jaime is in the jousts and Cersei by obligation must watch all the damned jousts! The only fun is the mystery knight that gives the Scab King apoplexy when he refuses to take off his helmet. Ashara’s theories about the mystery knight are the only true fun in the slough of sporting; that and teasing Ashara mercilessly about her tender feelings for Ned. Cersei doesn’t want Ashara moving to the North, but he is just a second son and she is heir to Starfall with her older brother’s…preference towards men. Perhaps Ned shall be Ned Dayne and will melt in the Dornish sun, wouldn’t that be funny?

Elbert Arryn indeed gets Celinda Whent’s favor and Cersei brings her into her lunch circle for some gossip intel. She; Elia; Ashara; Celinda; Lyanna; the trout bitch; Aunt Genna; and Mina Redwyne all settle down for tea, cakes and meats. “I heard rumors of a wedding come soon, Lady Celinda.” Cersei sips her tea. “Be sure to tell me the dates, I wouldn’t want to miss it.”

Celinda gives her a smile with her sharp little shin and cheekbones. “I’d be honored to have the Lioness of Lannister as a guest. Dear Elbert wants the wedding in the Eyrie, but I’m convincing him to have it at the Gates of the Moon. I’m in no mood to scale a mountain in a wedding cloak.” If only the Whents ruled the Riverlands, Cersei already likes Celinda better than Catelyn.

“A host of weddings to come soon. Lady Catelyn and Lord Brandon, Lady Celinda and Lord Elbert…perhaps a few more,” Elia says and smiles at Ashara. Ashara blushes and busies herself with pouring jasmine tea. “Ashara, how are things with lord Ned?”

Ashara glances at Lyanna who gives her a sympathetic nod. Then Ashara sighs and admits, “I don’t know of his intentions with me. I am half in love with him already, more’s the pity.”

“Eddard is an honorable man,” Catelyn soothes Ashara. “I’m sure he will begin to properly court you soon enough.”

“Soon is not enough, I’m afraid. I go to Casterly Rock after this tourney and then to Sunspear. He is fostering in the Vale and then must return to Winterfell, so this may be the only free time we have together in all of Westeros.” Ashara’s voice tapers off at the end and Cersei is furious.

How dare Ned play with Ashara’s heart with his dithering! The audacity of men and their inability to be forthright with their intentions! Cersei sits up straight. “This cannot stand. Lady Lyanna, Lady Catelyn, tell me everything about this Eddard Stark. We have a battle on our hands and I am not one for surrendering my dear friend to a faithless cause.”

Lyanna grins. Ned is a sweet, kind-hearted, absolute idiot. His favorite things in all the world are being an honorable man, Robert, sighing about Ashara and playing cards. He is entirely taken with Ashara, judging from what Lyanna’s heard him say to Brandon and Robert, and wants her hand but is terrified that the heir to Starfall is too good for a mere second son and that his father won’t approve of a Dornish good daughter. Catelyn also adds that Brandon wrote a letter to Lord Stark informing him of Ned’s intentions towards Ashara, and that if Lord Stark approves Ned may have permission to go to Sunspear on “Northern business”.

“The North does have a lot of good lumber and stone,” Cersei muses. “Maybe if Ned goes south on venture business that’s the prompt he needs.”

Celinda offers Cersei some fine Reach cheese. “Tell us more about your venture, Lady Elia, Lady Cersei. I’ve heard it’s the reason why we have fine mandarin oranges at our tables now, and I am very fond of oranges.”

Cersei leaves the lunch with more intel, more ideas for her venture, and Ashara on better footing for seducing a husband. And then comes the rest of the boresome tourney. At least Robert brings some fun to the melee. He is unstoppable on his horse with his war hammer, and Cersei fans herself when he smashes men to the ground. His arms, his shoulders, his thighs gripping his saddle…Lyanna is a lucky girl indeed. Ned says she’s half horse herself so she won’t have problems riding that absolute _stallion._ Cersei huffs and determinedly thinks about Rhaegar. Tall Rhaegar, beautiful Rhaegar, crystal and ice Rhaegar without a single thimble of passion like Robert and his braying laughter—Cersei excuses herself to bring Elia some refreshments. The poor woman looks ready to faint.

Elia hates the pageantry as much as Cersei does, as her babe tumbles around low in her belly. She is in her eight moon of pregnancy, just another fortnight and she can pop out the babe. Cersei hopes it’s a girl, a niece she can dote upon and teach all the ways to braid hair and how to rise horses in skirts and bending men to her will. Cersei asks Elia and Jaime in their tents, “What will you name it?”

Elia hums, patting her stomach to the beat of a minstrel playing for a crowd of smallfolk. “Loreon for a boy.” Cersei nods. A good name for another little lion. “As for a girl…we’ve decided that our second daughter will be named Meriandra. But for a first daughter, we’re at a loss, really.”

Jaime smiles and leans on Cersei’s shoulder. “We want to name our first girl for Mother,” he murmurs. Cersei’s heart squeezes. “Have any ideas?”

Oh, Cersei can already imagine the child. Long waves of golden hair, a pert little nose, maybe Elia’s eyes…Cersei sighs and considers Mother’s name. Joanna, Joanna, never was there a Lady Lannister as she. “Wasn’t Father’s mother named Jeyne? Perhaps Joleyne, a name all her own. Or maybe Rohanna, especially if she has red hair.” Rohanne Webber was a powerful lady in her own right, just like Mother and Jeyne Marbrand. Jaime and Elia’s daughter would do well to have them in her keeping.

Elia smiles. “All very lovely names. What would you name a daughter of your own?”

Cersei considers it. Oh, if she marries Rhaegar it’ll have to be some traditional Targaryen name. Elaena maybe, or Alysanne. Jaena, if she could get away with it. But if Rhaegar falls dead in the final round of jousting and Cersei marries some rich Essosi nobleman, her daughter shall have a name of Cersei’s choosing. “Myrcella,” she finally says. “I like Myrcella.” And then a Johanne to come after.

Cersei also likes it when Rhaegar asks for her favor in front of a crowd of people. Finally! A public display of affection! She neatly ties her favor around his lance and takes her seat in the jousting stands. He will win the joust, crown her Queen of Love and Beauty, they will dance the night away and King Aerys shall announce their betrothal. All shall be perfect, even with Cersei’s growing sense of dread. To be tied forever to such a cold man, cold as ice and snow…

Jaime loses to Ser Arthur Dayne, and seems quite excited by it even with the great bruise on his shoulder. He and Elia squeal over Jaime crossing lances with his great hero and Cersei shakes her head fondly with Ashara. Fools, the both of them. If the gods are good they shall be fools in love to the last.

Rhaegar wins the joust after much jousting that Jaime certainly is excited by. Elia is preoccupied with taking measured breaths and Ashara is making eyes at Ned further down the stands. Father squeezes Cersei’s shoulder after Rhaegar does his victory lap, and she smiles at him. His daughter, a princess and future queen; Cersei shall make him proud. Then Rhaegar gets the crown of blue winter roses, rides his horse towards them, Cersei stands, eager to accept—

He rides past her, and crowns Lyanna Stark his Queen of Love and Beauty. Ashara gasps, Jaime swears, Tyrion stands to his feet, and Elia says, “Ah” as her water breaks.

* * *

“That bastard!” Cersei declares as she slams her goblet on the canteen’s table. Some of the wine sloshes over her fist, and she glares at it. “That two-faced, lying, inbred _craven!_ I asked him what he _wanted_ , the Others take his _stupid_ eyes!”

She is alone, as the rest of her household is with Elia and the twins. The twins! She ought to be there with them, doting on little Rohanna—oh, how that name aches so sweetly—and Meriandra. Two daughters with wispy hair and wide eyes and pert little noses, two nieces for Cersei to spoil and love. A double blessing for House Lannister, especially as Elia shall not die any time soon. But she is too bitter, too incensed, and she doesn’t want to spoil the mood. Rather instead, she wants to drink herself into a stupor. Damn anyone who hears her!

Someone sits down next to her, and she squints her eyes at the form of Robert. He is as ruddy faced as she; judging from the smell he prefers ale to wine. All the better for Cersei, as she intends to drink Harrenhal’s cellars dry; Celinda already said it was fine. She raises an eyebrow at him. “Come to tell me to mind my manners? Your—hic—your foster brother tried that earlier. I may have hit him on the head with my cup.”

Robert laughs and refills his tankard. “No, my lady. He tried the same with me and I told him to get gone with his Lady Ashara before I beat proper sense into him.”

“Oh thank the gods,” Cersei groans. “First Jaime and Elia, then Ashara and Ned! What is it with Dornishwomen that turn men into fools?”

Robert grimaces. “Northern women too, I suppose the far north and south have it.”

Cersei pours herself more wine. “Ah, Lyanna Stark. Helping herself to my fickle, fainthearted _betrothed.”_ She drawls on the last word, like a viper sizing up a mouse. She gulps more of the wine, and she wonders if perhaps she should invest in more vineyards in her venture. “Well, former betrothed. I shan’t be suffering that fool!”

Indeed, while Elia screamed two children into the world Rhaegar came up to Cersei and tried apologizing. Something about honoring the Stark girl for her valor and bravery and meaning no dishonor to Cersei? Lyanna herself lingered behind him, looking abjectly terrified in her hideous stupid flower crown. Was she in on this?! Or did Rhaegar dishonor Cersei for the sake of shocking the very soul out of Lyanna?! Cersei slapped some color back into Rhaegar’s stupid face and told him that shall be the very he ever has of her hand, as she will give it to someone who actually honors her. Lyanna and the devils of the seven hells take his hand, as she washes her own of it! Then Aunt Genna laughed her cruel mocking laugh that tears people down to the bone and shuffled a shellshocked Rhaegar away back to his trembling lady love. His _lady love!_ Cersei drinks more.

He raises his eyebrows. “You’d turn down a crown?”

“He already gave a crown to her! I won’t be his…his second choice!” Cersei straightens up and brandishes her goblet at Robert. “I am the Lioness of Casterly Rock! I am the only reason why any house in Westeros has mangoes at their table!” She pauses. “Well, Elia and I are the reason. I bet the shock put Elia into labor, the foolish, two-faced, cunting bastard! He hurt my good sister! My best friend! I refuse—I refuse to marry such a man!” She sticks up her nose. “He can keep his precious crowns to himself!”

Robert grins and knocks cups with hers. “Here, here!” They slam back their cups and slam it on the tables. “Gods, can you believe the crap the bards are singing. Oh, the _precious_ Silver Prince and his Wolf Maid, how the king himself fawned over her and took the girl into his arms and accepted her as a good daughter.” He growls. “Loads of horseshit. I’ll smash the lute over the next bard’s head if they try that again!”

It’s much more fun to drink with someone who understands Cersei’s bitterness, filling her up like a salt mine. Does that make her…make her salty instead of bitter? She fills up his tankard. Saltiness it is then, as bitterness is lonely business. “The absolute cunt!”

“The absolute cunt!”

Cersei laughs despite herself. A warm feeling spreads through her body. “Let’s…let’s hire bards of our own. They can sing about,” Cersei thinks, and drinks wine. “What is a word that rhymes with bastard?”

Robert thinks, and drinks ale. “Mustard?”

“In the Vale dialect, yes. We can ask Elbert and Celly about it.” _Celly?_ Cersei drinks. Well then, Celly it is.

“The innocent Wolf Maid lured in a bastard with mustard,” he mumbles, and Cersei giggles. “You know, she came to me in that crown of roses. She told me a thousand excuses for why Prince Fucking Rhaegar crowned her his darling lady love. Something about choosing her own path for herself rather than the one her father and I are forcing upon her?” Robert grumbles. “She told me to go back to the Stormlands and marry a woman who would love me proper and give me all the sons I wanted. As if this was about sons!” Robert glares at nothing, and Cersei glares too. “Aye, she told me that she misliked my little Mya in the Vale, and I saw her make eyes with the Targaryen…but she gave me her favor for the melee! Never once did she have the kindness to tell me to press my suit elsewhere, neither she nor her family ever told me that my suit was unwanted. Not even _Ned_ told me!” The part about Ned seems to sting him most, and Cersei pats his shoulder in sympathy.

“Not an hour before the tourney, Rhaegar kissed my hand and accepted my favor!” Cersei burns with indignation. “Do—do they not know the purpose of favors?!”

Once again their cups are empty, but the saltiness remains. The servants bring them an entire cask of wine, and Cersei tempts him with it. “Tell me all about this Stark girl, I wish to know about our future queen.”

Lyanna Stark is quite loving of her own kin, but is a no-second-chances woman to Robert who didn’t let him explain why Mya Stone was born, or as Robert tells it. It seems Robert’s bastard was conceived right after he watched his parents drown in Shipbreaker Bay and he craved the comfort of a woman. “I do not regret Mya,” he growls. “She is my kin, another Baratheon even if she is baseborn. There are so few Baratheons left in this world.”

Cersei remembers her agony when Mother died, how she howled and smashed in mirrors and thought about throwing herself into the sea to join Mother in the seven heavens. Perhaps if she were a man and a few years older she would’ve swived a serving girl. “It’s quite obvious why ladies aren’t overjoyed to have a bastard stepdaughter.” She pats his bicep, she feels the firm muscles coiled beneath his skin. A very pleasant feeling. “But I’ve a cousin Joy Hill, and quite a few more Hills dotted around the Westerlands. My good brother has four bastard daughters and they’re all kind to me. They’re kin as well. You weren’t promised to her when Mya was born, were you?” He was not. “Well then, she should’ve sent Mya to an apprenticeship or a motherhouse and be done with it. Such is the way of the world.”

Robert startles. “You—wouldn’t you be mad if your husband had bastards?”

“Bastards born before my marriage are another fact of men and women. I wouldn’t be happy about it, but I’s not as great an issue as my husband being a wifebeater or a drunkard. But bastards after I had him in my marriage bed? Oh, I’d cut his cock off and serve it to him on a sweetmeat platter.” Cersei drinks her wine. So much wine. “He can have his whores if he properly scrubs after, the gods know how lusty men are and I won’t be a captured bedslave to my husband! But the only children we shall have after marriage are children by my own line.” She pauses. “And the gods save him if he neglects my own bed! I will be neither a bedslave nor a septa!”

He grins. “I doubt a man will need whores if he’s married to the Lioness of Casterly Rock.”

She preens and gives him a smile. “It seems you have sense after all, my Lord Baratheon.”

Lyanna is also wild, coltish, everything Robert thought he wanted as he didn’t want a docile wife knitting in her chambers day and night. No, he wants a woman to hunt with him, to raise a strong family with him, to charm and vex him in turns as Elenei charmed and vexed Durran Godsgrief. Cersei understands the appeal—she would suffocate with a meek thoughtless husband who had no spine. Rhaegar is absolutely intolerable, she shudders to imagine men even worse than he! She tells him as such. “I intend to sail to Far Essos one day,” she confesses. “Every day I watch our venture’s ships sail in and out of Lannisport, and I wonder what lands they come from, what lands they head for. I will see those lands for myself, mark my words.”

Robert gives her a look. “And you’ll do it alone? The world is dangerous for a woman even as yourself.”

Cersei sniffs. “Childbed is dangerous too but no one blinks an eye at that. Elia herself gave birth to twins at this tourney and people saw it as a matter of course. Nay,” and she grits her jaw, “I will wield a sword myself if I must! And I will wield it at the two-faced bastards who think of me less for no having a cock! Then no one shall ever say that Cersei Lannister did not—hic—did not make her mark on the world and carve out the best for herself!”

He nods. “I dare say you’d make a fine warrior, my lady.” He blinks. “Far finer than that silver cunt anyway!”

Cersei throws her head back and laughs. She laughs and he laughs, and they keep drinking until their blood is hot and somehow she’s straddling him demanding that he give back her cup and then his lips are on her neck and hmm. _Hmm._

Well, why not? If that Targaryen bastard can take happiness for himself at the expense of everyone else, why can’t Cersei have her fun too?

Thankfully they end up in a deserted room filled with pots and pans. They don’t go as far as Robert would have them, as Cersei knows they have already been too public with their indiscretions. And she still needs to barter her maidenhead to a husband, even if riding horses all her life took the physical mark away. But there are other things they can do, and Robert is…decent. His technique has no finesse at all and needs vast improvement, but it does the trick. Cersei is not opposed to being the woman who will force him to improve, as the Lord of Storm’s End is at least earnest. It helps that he’s the Warrior born into flesh, Cersei has never had a man kneeling at her feet before and to have such a man as Robert Baratheon do so? Well, that has endless promise.

The next morning, she washes her entire body with rosewater, wears her primmest dress, and marches to Father’s tent. “I will not marry Rhaegar,” she announces without preamble. “I will marry Lord Robert Baratheon.” The king shall announce Rhaegar and Lyanna’s betrothal today most likely, so they need to preempt them. Not to mention that Cersei wants nothing more to do with the silver asshole! Lyanna best prepare herself for his horseshit!

Father’s eyebrows raise to his hairline. “And why is that?”

Cersei crosses her arms. “The Stormlands have enough rains to water rice, sugar beet and soybeans without massive irrigation as it will require in Dorne and the southern Westerlands. If I marry Robert, we can bring the Stormlands into our venture, sell the excess rainwood lumber for more ships, grow our water-dependent crops…” and she crosses her arms. “We can join the Stark-Tully-Baratheon alliance. That’ll be our in for those markets, and the poor Crownlands shall have none to blame but themselves for their arrogance.”

Father fixes her with a long piercing gaze, but Cersei is unafraid. She will get what she wants! “All very good arguments from an economic point. But I heard the servants—did you dishonor yourself with Lord Baratheon last night?”

“Not in the true sense, but if that makes you agree to the wedding then I’ll say whatever is necessary.” Cersei hesitates, then she kneels by Father and rests her head on his knee. His hand rests in her hair, and it is a comfort Cersei didn’t know she needed. “I’m not in love with him, ‘tis true, and I know he will be a menace to keep in line. But I _cannot_ marry Rhaegar after he shamed me before the realm. I _can_ marry Robert who will not dare do such a thing. Not after the Stark girl left such a mark on his pride.”

“He has a bastard,” he warns her. “I will not see you shamed in your own household.”

“When Robert and I establish our household, I’ll have the girl and her mother put in a manse at Oldtown. Maybe the girl will take a liking to the seamstress’s guild there, or maybe she’ll marry a merchant and settle her fate that way.” She looks up at Father. “I need a strong man to stand by my side. I have plans for the venture that require me to square off against powerful Essosi lords, and with his war hammer and his…” she refuses to blush “…presence, they’ll fall into line.”

Father sighs. “I want you to be happy, Cersei. Do you think you could be happy with him?”

Cersei imagines herself sailing to Leng, with Robert fighting pirates and arguing with her over the last cup of wine and laughing his braying laugh and rubbing her feet when she is heavy with child. A child with his black hair and strong shoulders, and her green eyes and brilliant mind. She smiles. “I think I could be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing Cersei as Regina George with a heart of gold but an exterior of spite is so much fun you cannot imagine. I also promised you a happy Cersei and Robert. And thus I have delivered my take on it.
> 
> Cersei is one of my favorite characters because I love to hate her. She is absolutely diabolical in canon and brings about her own destruction. However, in this AU I wanted to give her a happy ending. She is still obsessed with gaining power and prestige for herself, but this time it manifests in a much healthier way because she has her bestie Elia giving her the chance to prove herself in an industry where a woman may rise high off of her own skills (and powerful connections).
> 
> So instead of Evil Queen Cersei, we have Successful Businesswoman Cersei who doesn’t have to take either Rhaegar or Robert’s shit. And Robert is incredibly attracted to the idea of a woman who will let him have his whores but will fairly hold him to account on their own relationship. 
> 
> Cersei killed all of Robert’s bastards in canon because they threatened her incestuous children with Jaime. But considering how here she is a) not having Jaime’s babies to cuckhold a royal succession with, b) more self-assured and confident in her own standing due to the venture, and c) this is a Happiness AU, she doesn’t really care about Mya’s existence. In Westeros, highborn men fathering bastards is something women are expected to look the other way on. I personally think that’s shit, but that’s the framework I have to work with and Cersei seems quite happy with her choice.
> 
> Cersei and Robert’s relationship will be a lot stormier than Jaime and Elia’s, but they will have a genuine love form between them. Being salty together about Rhaegar and Lyanna is a great start lmao
> 
> In this story Lyanna is a far more sympathetic character than my other story. Cersei and Robert are too salty to see whether or not Lyanna “led” Rhaegar on, and the truth is that Rhaegar charmed a young maiden who didn’t want to marry Robert. They were engaged, but not married, and this time around they get to be together without a war. Rhaegar is still a jerk tho but I imagine that even Lyanna gets a happy ending too.
> 
> Also, Elia had twin girls! Yay! I was torn between Rohanna and Meriandra, so I went with both lmao. Rohanna is named for Joanna (they sound very similar, and honor both Joanna and Rohanne Webber), and Meriandra is for Dorne. Merry Meri in this story will be our AU!Rhaenys, although Red Rohanna could also be considered an AU!Rhaenys. I guess they’re both…? Idk I wanted twins lol
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter!


	4. Meriandra

Meriandra grows up happy. Merry Meri they call her, and her twin Red, and Tylan Little Ty. Tylan isn’t very little to Meri though—her earliest memories of him are of him holding her on his lap and teaching her how to make a sandcastle. When Meri grows old enough to toddle after him with Red, he waits for her and holds her hand. Then he does his best to swing her around, and when Meri and Red are too heavy he calls for Papa to do it. And Papa is the strongest man in the world, as strong as Uncle Robert—he throws her into the air so that Meri might try and catch the sun as a present for Mama.

Then Mama laughs and tells Meri that she might stay up in the sky one day. Meri doesn’t want to live in the sky though, she wants to live at Casterly Rock with Mama and Papa and Rohanna and Tylan and Grandpapa. Uncle Tyrion and Auntie Alysanne live at the Golden Tooth, and when Meri goes to visit them she gets to ride on her pony. There they get to visit the gold mines and listen to Tyrion and Mama discuss “venture business.” The business that Auntie Cersei and Robert are on in far away Essos. Meri wants to go to Essos too one day, when she is as tall and strong as Mama.

Meri grows taller and stronger, and laughing all the while. She never knows true fear, true pain, as her parents adore her and each other and are a comfort when she breaks her arm riding her horse and struggles to learn Yi Tish. Grandpapa says that Meri is just like Papa, always finding the joy in nothing. Meri doesn’t see why she shouldn’t find that joy. Mama gives birth to two more children, Loreon and Joleyne, and Meri delights in teaching them everything she knows about dancing and playing the guitar and knowing where to find the best seashells and how to get sweets from Grandpapa. She delights in searching up strange tales in the library to tell her siblings at night, in sitting with Mama and Papa as they help rule the Westerlands, in experimenting with different paint colors to try and find the exact colors that explain unexplainable emotions. Jason Marbrand, Jeyne Westerling and Desmera Redwyne are their accomplices as she, Rohanna and Tylan scour the markets of Lannisport for exotic treasures and possibly cursed objects. Jeyne’s great-grandmother was a witch, so she is the most helpful in helping Meri with her mysteries.

When her Baratheon cousins visit from Essos, it’s even more fun. Joffrey is a bit of a prat, but so is Tylan every now and then and Joffrey always makes up for it by helping Meri sneak into the kitchens and steal tomorrow’s puddings. Myrcella and Tommen are sweet as spring and as young as her younger siblings so Meri makes sure to take care of them too. Myrcella has Lannister green eyes, but Joffrey and Tommen have blue eyes like the Sunset Sea. And Meri loves to braid flowers into their black hair; only Meri’s cousin Arianne’s hair is as dark as theirs so Meri always needs more practice.

Every day they play in the sea and practice archery atop their horses, and every night they dance in the halls and have a Braavosi water dancer beat them into pulps. Maesters teach her and her sisters arithmetic and economics just as they teach the boys. Cersei sends them exotic silks and books—so many books! She even sends them learned people from different countries to teach them different languages and customs! By the time Meri is thirteen, she can speak half a dozen language and read ten.

And when she is thirteen, Princess Daenerys asks if Meri and Rohanna would like to come to court and be her companions. It is a high honor, Meri knows this; ever since old King Aerys finally died of an unfortunate staircase incident and Queens Rhaella and Lyanna took firm control over the Red Keep and Kings Landing, the capital is a place of song and dance and learning. Learning! Oh, Meri doesn’t want to leave Casterly Rock as it means leaving little Loreon and Joleyne. But there is so much at court to learn and to see, and all the rumors and gossip that Cersei and Mama taught her to wield as a power within itself…and it’s not like they’ll be left alone. Tylan will come with them to be Crown Prince Aegon’s companion, along with Jason who is practically a second older brother to Meri. Aunt Ashara says she’ll send her two oldest to the capital too.

Meri loves the Daynes. Robb is just a year younger than herself, and then after him Sansa and Edric and Arya. They are witty and funny like their mother Ashara, and kind and soft-tempered like their father Ned. All of them can wield swords and spears and seaweed, so maybe if Daenerys gives them the ok Sansa can teach all of the royal companions how to spar and how to make absolutely immaculate embroidery. And she certainly hopes Robb will keep playing with them, even though they’ll be lords and ladies.

Grandpapa gives them a smile, the smile that he only gives to his grandchildren. “You do us all proud, my girls,” he tells them and pride swells in Meri’s heart. He gifts them matching golden necklaces, alternating with precious black Lengii pearls and swirling Yi Tish jade. “No one will ever dare question the value of you—and if they do, feel free to remind them as sharply as you’d like.” Meri and Rohanna hug him, and Meri hopes that from the seven heavens their grandmothers look down on them with pride too.

The night before they are to head to the capital, Rohanna flops down on Meri’s bed. “Do you think Mama and Papa shall find us lord to marry?” Rohanna scrunches up her nose. “I want nothing to do with boys who aren’t our kin and the Daynes and Marbrands. I heard that Rickon Stark eloped with Roslin Frey after they met at a single party! How silly is _that?!”_

Meri shudders herself. She knows that she and Rohanna are beautiful—their parents are the most gorgeous people in the world alongside Cersei, their smiles illuminate all of Casterly Rock, of course she and her twin would get some of that loveliness!—but she too is wary of grasping lordlings and knights. Who in their right mind gets married when they first meet?! Will someone look at Rohanna’s red-golden curls, or her own dark green eyes, and try and run away with them in the night? Absolutely silly; at least Tylan will cut down whoever tries! She rests her chin on Rohanna’s stomach. “Papa didn’t marry until he was sixteen, we have until then at least.” She sighs. “I want to see the Free Cities and Yi Ti before we get married, anyway. Joff and Cella and Tommen already get to see so much of the world…I guess it’s our turn.”

Rohanna hums, then nods. “It’s our turn to make our marks on Westeros. All will tremble before our might!” she declares in a voice like Cersei and they fall into helpless giggles.

“All shall fear the Rohanna the—the Red Lioness of Lannister!” Meri frowns. “Wait, we can’t be red lionesses, Grandpapa smashed them all at Castamere.”

“Red gold lionesses?”

“Sun lionesses?”

“The…the sun…ruby…ugh, the bards make it seem to easy to think of stupid nicknames!”

Meri laughs. Mama and Papa find her laughing while Rohanna tries to think of a worthy name for them. Papa is the Golden Lion and Mama is the Sun Lady and Cersei is the Lioness of Storm’s End—they’ve already taken the good names! Rohanna complains to their parents as such; Mama laughs and presses kisses to their curly hair. “You don’t need to worry about that, the ministrels never leave well enough alone and shall find some wonderful name to put a song to.”

Meri settles next to Papa. Oh, if only they could stay at the Red Keep with them! But her parents must stay at Casterly Rock and lead the venture that now brings obscene amounts of riches to Westeros. The Lannisters are the richest family in the kingdom now, and one day it’ll be Meri and her siblings’ responsibilities to keep the venture going. She will make her family proud, she and Rohanna and Tylan. Even little Loreon and Joleyne, who only know of the joys that their family brings them. Jaime hugs her around the waist. “My little girls, already little ladies. We’re sending Master Syrio with Tylan, and I expect you to join all of his lessons.”

Meri grins up at him. “That’s not very lady-like.”

“Aye, but we are the Lannisters of Casterly Rock, and entirely far too Dornish at that.” Mama gives them a wink, and pinches Rohanna’s cheek. “Lords and ladies of all over Westeros will have their eyes on you. Keep your spine straight, and your chin raised. _Tienes toda mi confianza, mijas.”_

“Unbowed, unbent, unbroken,” Meri and Rohanna say in unison. And Meri adds, “Hear us roar.”

* * *

Kings Landing is not as impressive as Lannisport or the Shadow City or Oldtown. Even the brand-new sewer system that the Queen Mother commissioned doesn’t fix the rickety buildings and mismatched foundations. But the Red Keep—the Red Keep is quite the castle. Meri looks up in awe at the dragon heads suspended in the throne hall. Balerion’s skull big enough for her horse to turn about in its jaws! And the Iron Throne is big enough to stretch to the top of the ceiling; she wonders how many swords of her ancestors are in the melded throne.

King Rhaegar makes a beautiful sight on the throne, although Meri is far more interested in Queens Lyanna, Rhaella and the young Targaryen prince and princesses. The Lannisters and the Baratheons are united in their dislike for Rhaegar, calling him names that Meri shall never dare repeat. But everyone in Westeros loves Rhaella, who is said to be the true power behind the throne. She gives them a gracious smile and Meri tries not to blush; a true queen is smiling at her! Lyanna smiles at her too and Meri smiles back. Lyanna is Ned’s sister, and runs the charities in the Crownlands that help the poor. Mama does the same in the Westerlands and Meri’s seen the work that goes into it, so therefore Lyanna is already a nice enough queen.

Their children Aegon, Jaehaerys, Daeron and Baelor all do their best to be imposing like their father. All of them have dark brown hair and indigo eyes and the Valyrian cheekbones and the Stark long face, so they do pretty good in looking regal. However, Aegon is two years younger than Meri, so she is not intimidated by a ten-year-old boy. And honestly, he would make a much nicer sight if he smiled, like wee Baelor does when he forgets to be princely. Prince Viserys stands with Arianne on his arm and he definitely looks happy. Considering the rather torrid things Arianne write to her and Rohanna about, things Meri very much doesn’t want to imagine in front of them…well, as long as they’re happy.

Princess Daenerys comes to hold Meri and Rohanna’s hands after all the curtsies and pleasantries are done with. She is a vision, all silver-gold hair and purple eyes and a sunny smile. “I’m so excited to have more companions, it can be a bit lonely here with all of my nephews and their friends.”

“We’re excited to be here too,” Meri chirps. She glances to the side to make sure their parents aren’t listening. Then she leans in and asks, “This castle is very big—where do the ghosts haunt? The ghouls?”

Daenerys leans in too. “Oh thank goodness you asked, there’s a cavern beneath the castle we HAVE to explore.”

Meri; Rohanna; and Sansa are Daenerys’s three newest ladies. The others are Margaery Tyrell; Shireen Baratheon; Brienne of Tarth; Alyssa Arryn; Wylla Manderly; Walda Frey; Clarissa Celtigar; and Asha Harlaw. Asha used to be a Greyjoy until her father tried to rebel against the crown. Euron Greyjoy tried to burn the fleet at Lannisport, but Grandpapa found out from his trading partners and had Euron’s head put on a spike outside of the port city. Alannys Harlaw then took her two youngest children to sanctuary in a motherhouse while Pyke was burnt to the ground, and made an agreement with the crown: she, Theon and Asha could live in peace with Theon as Lord Harlaw’s heir, as long as they gave up the name and swore to never rise against Westeros again.

It’s all a very fascinating story, as Papa and Uncle Oberyn fought in the war. Meri wonders if Asha is bitter about it, or glad that her foolish relatives can’t cause anymore trouble. She seems quite cheerful, in a bird of prey sort of way, and is delighted when Meri agrees to spar with her. “I’ll teach you the finger dance,” Asha says. “First with sticks, then with axes—I doubt your parents will be happy if I claimed a finger from you.”

“Don’t worry,” Meri says with a smile. “A lioness’s claws are worth quite a lot, it’ll pay for your ransom.”

Rohanna whispers to Asha, “Meri is the deadliest of we Lannisters. Beneath her smile is pure calculation about what sort of cursed creatures she’ll put into your mattress.”

Sansa raises her eyebrows. “Like sheepshifting?”

“Yes but the sheep shit glows in the dark.”

Asha laughs and slings her arms around Meri and Rohanna. “Oh, I’m so glad you’ve come. We shall be the very best of friends.”

Asha is right. Meri and Rohanna are already inseparable, and Sansa is their dearest friend in all of Dorne alongside Arya and Arianne. They are already friends with Shireen as well, as she is their sort-of cousin through Stannis Baratheon and his wife Jeyne Swann. She is Daenerys’s second hand and, if the rumors are true, shall either marry Aegon or Jaehaerys when they all become of age. Meri thinks she would make a good queen, as she is practical and straightforward; at least she would make a good princess.

Asha is chaos confined into one body, the chaos of ax throwing and teasing boys with daggers until they do what she wants and haggling with the sailors at the docks. She and Wylla are much the same, with their shared love of the sea and disdain for dresses. Yet for all of Asha’s brashness, she is trustworthy enough to confide secrets in, like how Meri’s moonblood doesn’t come regularly and how she worries about Tylan’s future happiness with Desmera. Wylla too is a good confidant, and Meri and Rohanna help her with her strained relationship with her sister Wynafryd—being older sisters themselves, Meri understands why sometimes Wynafryd can be overbearing to Wylla.

Walda is sharp, sharp as Valyrian steel beneath her giggling façade, and has the most vicious gossip. It’s through Walda that Meri learns about how Rhaegar once tried to romance Lysa Mooton and Lyanna threw his harp at his head! And she’s the one who helps them counter a rumor that Meri is in a doomed romance with Aegon with a rumor of their own: that Meri shall only marry a knight true enough to have won a thousand duels. Margaery also delights in gossip, nearly as much as Cersei and Myrcella do, and Meri wonders if Margaery ought to marry Joffrey and be scandalous together in some Essosi villa. Joffrey is always exciting to be around when he visits Casterly Rock, and she wouldn’t mind having one of her new friends as a good cousin.

Meri isn’t quite as close with Clarissa, since she has the personality of a wet dish rag, but she is nice to her regardless and loves her odd sense of humor. Clarissa is also the most interested in the strange bumps in the night and the possible existence of mermaids in the Blackwater Rush, and it’s always a blessing to have a fellow adventurer when Meri trudges out in hip-high boots into the delta. They even find a strange egg, covered in slime and iridescent scales, that they hide from everyone outside of their circle. No need for the king to try and steal it from them!

Alyssa and Brienne are the most endearing out of the bunch, with Alyssa’s gentle concern for both their friends and the smallfolk, and Brienne’s sense of honor. Alyssa is the infamous Celinda Whent’s daughter, so she can go toe to toe with the harshest and most backhanded of ladies as easily as knitting a sweater. But she would rather garden, and give advice for Meri and Rohanna about how to be good Lannister influences, and playing her lute. Brienne is painfully shy and uncomfortable in large crowds and dances where her giant frame is gawked at by the stupid and cruel-hearted, so Meri and Rohanna encourage her to take water dancing lessons with them. No one can ever claim she can’t dance after that!

Dancing, jesting, sparring, and all the books Meri could ever dream of. All the Citadel’s resources at the queens’ call, and all the ships from Essos and Sothoryos making their stops in lings Landing after visiting Lannisport. Meri commissions poems and landscape artwork for Casterly Rock, and tries her hand at venture business. She is less forceful and more compromising than Rohanna, so she makes sure her twin is the one to write the contracts. Wouldn’t it be nice if certain Maalian goods made their way to Lannisport in exchange for Dornish mangoes and saffron? The merchants certainly think so, and Grandpapa sends her a letter praising their initiative. Meri and Rohanna jump about on their beds for an entire week after. “We’re going to be just like Mama and Papa and Aunt Cersei,” Rohanna declares. “You’re too nice, Meri, but that’s a good thing.”

Meri hits Rohanne with a pillow for her cheek, then tilts her head. “Why is it good to be too nice?”

“Because since you’re too nice, I get to be too mean. Like Mama and Aunt Cersei. Together, we shall have all the mangosteen in the world!” Meri laughs and they pretend to be evil villainesses robbing the world of its fruit. Sansa hears them since they share a room, so she and Robb and Robb’s friend Monford Velaryon join in on the fun.

Years pass like this, years of joy and wonder. Throughout it all, Meri has Rohanna and Tylan to depend on, and her friends and parents. And of course there’s Daenerys at her side constantly, who is sweet and impulsive and determined to make the world a better place. “I will be like Mother,” she tells Meri as they walk through the gardens. Exotic flowers such as orchids and hibiscuses and star lilies and snapdragons bloom around them in the great trellises and terraces in the gardens. Even a pond full of glittering fairy-fish bubbles merrily under a fountain; the gardens of Kings Landing are unlike anywhere else in Westeros. “She’s helped so many people in Westeros, and they look up to her as a sort of mother. I may never be queen, but I can be the people’s mother.”

“You won’t marry Aegon?” As the years pass and everyone grows older, Aegon becomes more of a man and more enticing for the ladies at court. He is still like a boy to her, the same boy that crossed wooden swords with Tylan and leads him on merry misadventures in the Crownlands. He’s like a little brother, if Meri is so arrogant to say the Crown Prince of Westeros is a brother. But maybe he’s more like a man to Daenerys?

She shakes her head. “If it were up to me, maybe I’d marry someone like Desmond Arryn, or Ormund Baratheon, or even Robb Dayne. Someone who can give me a good home and good work to achieve.”

Meri’s stomach twists when Daenerys mentions Robb. He is the newest Sword of Morning, heir to Starfall, and quite the prize considering Starfall’s wealth and combined Dayne-Stark pedigree. She must speak to Sansa about this, she doesn’t want her dear friend’s heart broken. Only the best of women can possibly marry him!

Sansa and Robb spend a lot of their time together when they aren’t separated by classes and duties, so it’s easy to join along with them and Rohanna. Rohanna always leads the discussions, as she is a natural born leader and must get the first word in. “Monford will be the death of me,” she declares one evening when the stars are brimming in the velvet sky and the air is cool and wet. Spring has returned, just in time for Meri and Rohanna’s sixteenth namedays. Rohanna and her are much taller now, and their arms and thighs are thick with muscle after years of horseback riding and sparring. Rohanna’s famous red-golden hair curls to her hips; Grandmother Joanna’s high cheekbones no longer hide behind baby fat; and her bright emerald eyes captivate everyone’s gaze. Meri herself is more Dornish in looks, with golden brown hair and a stronger nose and plumper lips and Mama’s cheekbones. Her freckled golden skin and dark jade eyes are from Papa’s family though, and both twins are absolute beauties. The Lionesses Ruby and Jade of Casterly Rock, some bards say. Merri Meri and Red Rohanna, their friends say.

Robb smiles at them and Meri twists her hands as a strange nervousness flutters through her stomach. He asks, “What has he done now, Red?”

The relationship between Rohanna and Monford is fit for song, and Meri is pretty sure there’s already people singing about the young Heir to the Tides and the Lioness Ruby of Lannister. And it’s not that Meri doesn’t like Monford—he makes Rohanna laugh and smile and let down some of her armor. Why wouldn’t she like that? But he is a fool, an absolute fool, because Rohanna truly loves him and he acts as if she is just another friend, _pinche pendejo_. For that, Meri would gladly destroy him.

Rohanna glares at nothing in particular. “Well first he invited me and Clarissa to take tea with him and his brother, which I took as a sign of interest. Then he makes me laugh and walks along with me in the gardens and gifts me pearls—all things that boys do with girls they like, don’t they?” Everyone nods and Rohanna crosses her arms. “He even…well, he even kissed me at sunset with all the roses and jasmine blooming!” Sansa gasps and Meri gasps too. He kissed her twin?! Rohanna sighs. “But then he announces to all and sundry that he will marry Clarissa instead! Aunt Cersei said Rhaegar did the same thing in their youth and I should shove him off the battlements.” Sansa giggles and Rohanna winks at her. “Care to help me with that? We redheads ought to stick together, I think.”

Meri frowns and rests her hand on Rohanna’s shoulder. Despite her flippant tone, she can hear the aching hurt in Rohanna’s voice. And how _dare_ Monford play with her sister’s heart as such! To kiss a lady, then marry her friend! Meri stands up in a huff; it’s unacceptable, and she won’t have her best friend in all the world hurting! “I’ll invite Jeyne and Desmera to the Red Keep as backup, and I’ll talk to Tylan. He is friends with Monford and he will know how to exact our revenge.” Meri has an assortment of strange and obviously cursed objects at her disposal—let’s see Monford try and break anyone’s heart when his hair changes to bright pink and he cannot take ten steps without sneezing!

Robb grins. “Revenge?”

“Revenge.” Meri grins back at him. “He will do well to remember that we lionesses have our pride.”

“Lionesses and their pride, the sun and her spears.” Robb’s voice is like pure silk in her ears and Meri is glad it’s too dark to see her blushing. “As a loyal Dornishman, I will be glad to help.”

Tylan is also outraged when Rohanna explains to him her plight. “He did what?!” He clasps both of Meri and Rohanna’s shoulders. _“¿Qué chingados?_ Something is amiss here. He told me that he had intentions to properly court you as soon as he got his father to agree to it!” Meri gasps—Monford is a real man? Not just some jerk playing with her sister’s heart?! She decides she shall spare him pink hair, if Tylan’s words are true.

Rohanna bits her lip. “But when why would he say he’s marrying Clarissa?”

Tylan frowns. “It might not be his decision…”

“Wait, did his father truly turn down Rohanna for Clarissa?” Meri likes Clarissa, considers her a friend…but she and Monford are already cousins! She’s made moon eyes at Emmet Rosby for _years!_ And Rohanna is one of the richest women in Westeros—the stupidity of pure-blooded Valyrian families!

“Either way we’ll have our revenge,” Tylan swears. He gives them a grin and a wink. “And I have a perfect idea for it!”

They plot, and Desmera and Jeyne come to court as Daenerys’s guests. Jeyne helps Meri create a curse on Lord Velaryon: the curse of the magpies. A pearl-studded aquamarine brooch with a tiny satchel of special herbs within. They shall replace the odious lord’s brooch with this cursed decoy, and every magpie and crow and pigeon within a mile shall attack him! Desmera, cheerful and sweet and with the most innocent face a schemer could ever have, convinces Clarissa to bring her the Velaryon brooch so that a Redwyne may compare it to hers.

To their surprise though, Clarissa doesn’t need any more convincing or tricking. “Father is stupid,” she says in her blunt voice. “Neither Monford and I want to marry each other, and why should we? If Velaryons and Celtigars keep marrying each other we’ll sprout third arms.”

Meri giggles and Rohanna shakes her head. “That would be cursed.”

“Extreme cursed.” Clarissa crosses her arms. “When should I announce my “secret” betrothal with Emmet to make your plot more…dramatic?”

Rohanna smiles and rubs her hands together. “At the ball for our namedays, of course! Do you think we can get Monford to publicly announce his suit there?” Clarissa nods and Meri’s twin dances in her seat. “And our cousins will be there too! It’ll be spectacular!”

Tylan writes to their parents about their intentions—if anything else, it’s best to have Mama and Grandpapa plotting with them—and Papa agrees that the future Lord of the Tides is a fine husband for Rohanna as long as he proves himself to be true and trustworthy. Mama casually arranges the dances so that Meri and her sisters shall go first, escorted by the finest of men. Of course Monford shall escort Rohanna, and by the time Lord Velaryon escapes the magpies long enough to notice, Monford shall declare to everyone that Rohanna is the fairest lady in the land.

They tell their plot to their friends and they bounce about with excitement. “Please let us help,” Daenerys begs. “I could get more dancers to make it more of a grand entrance!”

“All of us must back you up, of course,” Shireen says. “We are the leading ladies of all Westeros—the implication that we all support you, Red, will make this plot more grounded.”

Meri asks Brienne, “Are you comfortable with this? You don’t have to dance if you don’t want to.”

Brienne flushes a pale pink. “Will Ser Robar agree to dance with me?”

“I’ll hold him at knifepoint until he does,” Asha says. Then she teases, “I doubt he’ll need much convincing, of course. He worships the ground you stand on ever since you thrashed him and all his brothers soundly.”

Brienne turns bright red and they all giggle. Then a page announces that Cersei’s children are here. Meri jumps to her feet and throws herself into Myrcella’s arms. “Cella! Joff! Tommen! Just in time for an intrigue!”

“An intrigue without me?” Joffrey mock-sniffs at them. “Hardly an intrigue then, isn’t it?”

“It took you too long to get here, time is gold and Lannisters don’t get rich idly.”

They assemble all of their plotters into Daenerys’s sitting room, even getting poor Aegon and Jaehaerys involved. Aegon has not a plotting bone in his body, ever the parfit knight and king-to-be. But Aegon is their friend, and he too is quite cross with the meddling of stupid adults in matters of the heart. Aegon pats Meri and Rohanna’s hands. “If Lord Velaryon tries to complain to the king,” he promises, “I’ll be on your side, as will Mother and Grandmother.”

Their partners are chosen, their dress colors coordinated, Tommen agrees to play the Yi Tish erhu fiddle with the royal musicians to make their dancing all the grander. Aegon blushes when Sansa volunteers to be his dance partner; Meri raises her eyebrows at Rohanna. There has indeed been a Dayne consort before, hasn’t there? And Sansa is bright and considerate, perfect qualities for bringing Aegon out of his melancholic shell…Shireen told the king himself that she would rather marry Jaehaerys anyway since she plans to be ambassador to Braavos one day and can’t be queen, so Aegon is free to pursue Sansa. Wouldn’t it be sweet, for all their friends to fall in love?

Well, nothing is set in stone anyway. The only thing for sure is that by the end of their namedays, Rohanna WILL have Monford. Meri watches from behind a pillar as they meet in the gardens at midnight. They make a beautiful picture. Rohanna is golden even in the darkness, her voice soft and flowing like the Blackwater Rush as she whispers her love for Monford. And Monford’s hair is like starlight, his eyes filled with so much longing that it takes Meri’s breath away. Oh, Meri wants someone to look at her like that, to hold her hands like that, to press their lips against hers like that.

She wants to be cherished, to be desired. She wants someone to love her as Papa loves Mama: as an equal, as a partner, as a complement to a whole. They must be kind, and good-hearted, and wield both a sword and a pen, and never think her lesser for her unlady-like ways…Meri’s thoughts drift towards someone before she slams a door on those thoughts. No, she must focus on her sister’s happiness now. Her beloved twin, her constant companion in his life. Rohanna deserves the absolute best, and Meri will make sure she gets it.

* * *

The days leading up to the ball are hectic. It’s officially Meri and Rohanna’s coming of age, and as the premier heiresses in Westeros with the favor of the royal family little expense is spared. Meri spends her time playing peacemaker between overbearing artists and planners, and helping Sansa embroider their dress sashes, and venting into Tylan’s shoulder about how she misses their parents and wants them to come to the Red Keep faster. Rohanna worries her handkerchiefs until the fine silk frays, and Meri holds her hands. “It’ll be alright,” She tells her. “It’ll be m y nameday present for you, to be happy.”

Rohanna gives her a trembling smile. There is so much anxiety in her usually unflappable twin’s eyes that Meri’s stomach twists. “Well, you are our Merry Meri. You’d know about happiness…”

Meri kisses her cheek. “That I do. And you know about all things red: red roses, red rubies, red silk fans from Yi Ti that Aunt Cersei definitely got us for the ball—” Rohanna gasps and her worries are forgotten for a while; just as Meri planned.

When it’s the morning of the ball, Meri nearly forgets the original purpose of the ball until Robb comes to give her a present.

“Happy nameday,” he tells her and hands her a long velvet box.

Meri blinks, then flushes red and smiles at him. “Oh Robb, you shouldn’t have!” She opens the box and gasps. “You really shouldn’t have—where did you get this?”

“I had it commissioned for you.”

It’s a dagger of Valyrian steel, lovingly crafted with suns leading up the spine of the dagger and a lion’s head at the pommel. The grip is deep red leather, and along the dagger’s crossguard she can read the delicate inscription “A lioness’s claw is worth a sun’s ransom.”

She looks up at him—when did he get taller than her?—then she crushes him in the strongest hug she can give. “I love it! I adore it—I’ll use it well and keep it safe always, you didn’t need to give me such a gift!”

“Of course I did, you deserve it.” He hugs her back, and Meri’s stomach is filled with burning butterflies. Thank the gods her face is over his shoulder, otherwise she’d perish instantly of embarrassment. He pulls back and their gaze meets. He has the loveliest eyes; Sansa has the purple Dayne eyes, and Edric and Arya have the Stark gray eyes, but Robb’s eyes are a clear, deep blue. They’re like the sky, or maybe the Jade Seas. And right now they’re looking at her with such softness that Meri can hardly breathe…she whispers, _“Tienes unos ojos preciosos,”_ without meaning to say it aloud. But the way he sucks in a breath, the way he blushes such a sweet red—

Mama once told Meri about how she and Papa fell in love. How it was like jumping off a cliff’s edge into the Summer Sea, terrifying and exhilarating and requiring strength of will in order to take the final plunge. And Mama has never led Meri wrong, never told an outright lie. So Meri decides to take that final plunge. “Will you dance with me at the ball tonight, my lord?” she asks. Tylan was to be her partner, but he should dance with Desmera anyway as they shall marry soon enough. And all Meri wants to do is dance the night away with him.

Robb smiles, and holds her hand in his. She can feel the callouses from Dawn, yet the center of his palms are pleasingly soft. Then he bows his head and kisses her knuckles. Meri shivers and he says, “I’d be honored to, my lady.”

“Good,” Meri blurts out. “If I step on your toes, please don’t tell me because I will faint and it will be very embarrassing.” Then she laughs because she’s being an idiot, and Robb laughs too. He has a lovely laugh, and she can laugh with him—she can laugh with him! She can be happy with him, she knows. And that’s what she desires above all else.

When her family finally, finally arrive, Mama seems to know that she’s falling in love. After Papa is finished twirling them about and telling a hilarious story about Arya and a certain Ser Sandor Clegane betting into a bar brawl, and after she takes Loreon and Joleyne to the gardens to play in the fountains with, and after Grandpapa rests his hands on their shoulders and smiles at them—after all that, Mama brings the twins and Tylan aside. “I know about you and Monford, Rohanna,” she murmurs. “And I wish you two the most happiness. And you and Desmera shall make a lovely couple, Tylan. But what about you, Meriandra? Has someone stolen your heart?”

“Not stolen,” Meri says with a smile. “I offer it freely and hopefully he accepts.”

Mama has tears in her eyes, and she hugs them tightly. “You two are women now, where did the time go? I remember when you two were but babes in arms, as small as little porcelain dolls. And now your paths already part from mine.”

Rohanna sniffles up at Mama. “We’re not going anywhere just yet, Mama. You’re stuck with us and we shall bury you in visits and gifts and grandchildren.”

“Don’t mention grandchildren to your father, he’ll have a breakdown.” Meri giggles despite the tears burning in her eyes and throat. She and her siblings have visited home a few times during their stay in the capital, and their parents come to visit the Red Keep…but now it truly feels as if she’s becoming an adult now. Independent, seeking a home that is not Casterly Rock. Meri rests her head on Mama’s shoulder and Mama kisses her forehead. “My sweet children. You make me so happy.”

“Not just stressed out about your hellion children?” Tylan sniffles, as he’s never been one to shy away from his emotions. Rohanna gives him a hug and Meri holds his hand.

Mama kisses his forehead too, then pinches his cheek. “I love my stubborn plotting hellions very much. Especially when I hear that a hellion and the Crown Prince get drunk in Flea Bottom together and try sparring while half naked.”

Meri laughs as does Rohanna and a mortified Tylan. Papa knocks on the inside of the door; his own eyes are glazed with tears, he must have been listening in on them. “Dry your eyes, my loves,” he says. “We’ve a ball to attend.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’ve seen the live action Cinderella with Richard Madden as Prince Charming, then that’s the vibe for Robb in this story. I keep making him Rhaenys’s Ser Dreamboat™ lmao
> 
> Everyone is happy! We have Nice!Joffrey, we have a Jon/Sansa that isn’t steeped in sadness, we have Lyanna managing Rhaegar’s BS! Nothing Bad Happens In This Story!
> 
> You guys ever watch Angelica ASMR? A) you should she’s hilarious, and b) she’s what I imagine the twins to look like with some differences like hair color and eye color. And her general vibe is also a Big Mood for Meri, who a lot of people think is pleasantly weird but certain people *cough*Robb*cough* can’t get enough of her. Tylan looks like Rohit Khandelwal, aka 2016 Mister World. Jaime and Elia have absolutely stunning children lol
> 
> Meri here is a very merry mix of Elia (determination, kindness) and Jaime (hopeless romantic, oddness), along with the slight immaturity and drama that comes with being a happy teenager. She also has the OG Rhaenys’s introspection and knack for collecting 1000 friends
> 
> Robb/Rhaenys and Monford/Rhaenys are my two ultimate rarepairs (alongside Jaime/Elia…my life is suffering) so of course I had to have both in this story! I Do What I Want


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